BLUE HERON 

COVE 



Fanij£ Lee McKinney 




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The intruders stood in front of her [Page 236] 


BLUE HERON COVE 


BY 

FANNY LEE McKINNEY 

n 


ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
ADA C. WILLIAMSON 



NEW YORK 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1918 



Copyright, 1918 

BY 

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 


OCT 14 1916 


THE QUINN A BO DEN 00. PRESS 
< II RAHWAY, N. 4. 

7- - 

© Cl. A 5 Q 6 i (> 1 


IS- 19299 


TO 

MARCIA and CHRISTIANE, 

AND THEIR FRIENDS. WHO CONSTITUTED THE 
BOARD OF READERS 






CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Juilliard ........ i 

II A Journal 8 

III Plans 17 

IV A Meeting in Philadelphia .... 30 

V Leona Goes for a Walk 47 

VI Down Through Jersey 64 

VII Sadie Wienerwurst 74 

VIII Pirates 88 

IX The Evening Train 104 

X Explanations about the New Boarder . .110 

XI Letters about the New Boarder . . . 124 

XII Dan’s Story 132 

XIII The Old Safe: Chart Number One . . 146 

XIV First Expedition 158 

XV First Find 168 

XVI The Trunk in the Kitchen Attic . . . 180 

XVII Chart Number Two 190 

XVIII Second Expedition and Second Find . . 199 

XIX Boarders and How to Avoid Them . . . 214 

XX Third Expedition 228 

XXI Pirate Pinneo’s House 236 

XXII The Boarders Think They Have Found 

Something 248 

XXIII Dan Tries to Raise Money 258 

XXIV His Friends Go to Find Some .... 267 

XXV Treasure 277 

XXVI Several People Out of Sorts .... 285 

XXVII “ In a Trunk in a Kaig ” 292 

XXVIII Other Treasure 302 

XXIX Mrs. Piffington Receives a Shock . . . 313 

XXX Coney or Blue Heron? 323 
















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ILLUSTRATIONS 


The intruders stood in front of her . . . Frontispiece 

FACING 

PAGE 

Stephanie repeated in a shaky voice 26^ 

“ Why, child, you’re all wet ! ” . . . . . . 78 v 
The little girl came shyly to his side ..... 310 v*" 












BLUE HERON COVE 


CHAPTER I 
THE JUILLIARD 

A little girl in a dark-green velvet dress stood at a 
window of the Juilliard in Fifty-xth Street leaning her 
forehead against the glass. She wore patent-leather 
pumps laced across the ankles, and silk stockings, and 
her dark curls were tied with a large soft bow. 

And this little girl had Never 
Played tag (squat, plain, or tree). 

Eaten green fruit. 

Slid down a cellar door. 

Been on a picnic. 

Had a girl friend. 

Digged in the ground. 

Eaten bread and molasses. 

Chewed sassafras, spruce gum, or slippery elm. 
Tried to beat anybody at anything. 

Dressed up in long dresses. 

Had on roller skates. 

Been acquainted with a baby. 

Made mud pies. 

Slid on a sled. 


2 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Made a dandelion chain. 

Sewed a Christmas present for somebody. 

Played with the garden hose. 

Fussed with dough. 

Made a bonfire. 

Been in wading. 

Sailed boats in a bath-tub. 

Read the Arabian Nights or Swiss Family Robinson. 

Known a boy well enough to say Hullo to him. 

She was eleven years old and her name was Stephanie 
Rand. 

The Juilliard is an apartment hotel designed for people 
of wealth, who live in the same luxurious rooms year 
after year. It is a rich and quiet place. A stranger 
coming into the lobby might wonder if he had turned 
into a church door by mistake, so dark is the woodwork, 
so heavy and somber the rugs, so hushed the elevators, 
and so like a Gothic chapel the panelled inclosure where 
the serious clerk remains. But no, perhaps a Moorish 
palace instead, for there beyond velvet draperies is a 
thicket of green palms quietly quivering and from their 
depths at the stillest hour comes a sound of falling 
water. 

Beyond this water court (there are goldfish in the 
fountain) are the dining-rooms in white and gold, but 
Stephanie hardly ever went there. She had almost all 
her meals in Apartment Seven A, where she lived with 
her aunt, the Countess von Menzell, and with Fraulein 
Hammerschlag and Hannchen, the maid. 

Here is Miss Stephanie Rand’s program for the day: 

Rise at eight. Be dressed by nine. 

Breakfast at nine with Fraulein in the school-room. 


3 


THE JUILLIARD 

Lessons and practising from ten to one. 

Dinner at one with Fraulein in the school-room. 

Ride in the limousine, followed by massage and 
rest, or vice-versa : — it depended on whether Aunt 
Katherine wished to use the car that afternoon. 

Anything to amuse herself until six o’clock. 

Supper at six with Fraulein in the school-room. 

Bed at half-past seven. 

This was the ordinary program while Stephanie was 
well and in town. She went out to some of her lessons 
such as riding and dancing and to visit the masseuse. 
Sometimes she and Fraulein took lunch downstairs in 
the dining-room. Sometimes Aunt Katherine lunched 
with them in the school-room — but Stephanie wished she 
would not. And once in a while, when Fraulein did not 
go out, and it was bright, and Hannchen felt like it, they 
went up to the Park on foot. 

On this day at five in the afternoon she leaned against 
the school-room window and brooded over a secret of her 
own. Two nights before she had begun to keep a jour- 
nal in English. She wrote it after she had gone to bed 
and she had made with scissors a small snip in the mat- 
tress and hidden the journal inside. This snip was 
under the binding and was held together by a pin adroitly 
woven in. But what if the chambermaid should find it 
and report to Hannchen? 

From this worry the familiar stretch of roofs offered 
no distractions. She had long ago found out which 
house fronts they belonged to in the street below — the 
pansy-house, the little-tree-house, the doctor-houses, the 
For-Sale-house, the old houses, and the brick buildings. 
All these roofs were covered with snow ; not even a cat 


4 BLUE HERON COVE 

was stirring and a dull February sky hung over every- 
thing. 

Suddenly Stephanie threw back her head and became 
all attention. The telephone had rung. She darted into 
the hall and when Hannchen came and- took down the 
receiver stood close to her side. 

“ I go see,” said Hannchen, and then, “ I vill go tell 
her.” 

She went and knocked at a door down the passage and 
came back in a moment. 

“ Madame von Menzell is at home und vill see him.” 

“1st es der Herr Vaterf 1st es?” whispered 
Stephanie pulling at Hannchen’ s sleeve. 

" Y a, ya. J s ist der Herr” 

Stephanie flew into her own room and was opening 
drawers and pulling things out before Hannchen could 
follow. She breathed fast and her cheeks had a little 
color in them. 

But when Hannchen finally opened the door of Aunt 
Katherine’s sitting-room and Fraulein Hammerschlag 
marched in, leading Stephanie by the hand, you would 
have thought that here was a wooden child. This was 
not merely because of the long wait before Aunt Kath- 
erine sent for them. Stephanie always became paralyzed 
just before she went in, and the father whom in absence 
her fancy had brought so near, seemed now that they 
came face to face to be separated from her by a dense 
fog of not-understanding. 

If the others would only stay out how they could 
talk, and she might even move up close and lean her 
cheek against his sleeve as she had seen a child do at 
church! But people were always there — always had 


5 


THE JUILLIARD 

been — and that made everything go wrong. She remem- 
bered two or three times when he asked her to walk up 
to the Park with him. She was frightened by Aunt 
Katherine’s face into shaking her head, or Fraulein said 
that she had an appointment or a cold. Once he pulled 
out some slips of pink pasteboard and made quite a long 
speech about men that stood on each other’s heads hold- 
ing in their mouths poles upon which other men stood, 
about dancing, and a lady in the water with music on 
her tail (it was “ covered with scales,” he said). 
“ How would you like that ? ” She shook her head and 
answered, “ Ich kenn das nicht, Herr Vater ” ; which was 
the truth. She knew nothing of such men or ladies. 

“ What, you won’t come ! ” And he turned away with 
a look that made her heart ache long after. There was 
no chance to explain that she hadn’t known she was to 
come anywhere; Aunt Katherine sent her away to her 
practising at once. And he never brought pink slips 
again. He hardly spoke to her any more. 

To-day the two persons sitting near a shaded lamp took 
no notice for a moment but kept on looking daggers at 
each other — Aunt Katherine very handsome with her 
elaborately waved gray hair and black eyes, and her 
brother-in-law, younger, handsome also, having gray 
eyes as hard as his companion’s dark ones. He frowned 
and slapped the table with his gloves and as Fraulein 
and her charge walked in he said sharply : 

“ Then you refuse to consider any different arrange- 
ment but wish to continue as trustee of the property and 
guardian also? ” 

“ Certainly. You should have made your proposition 
ten years ago. At my sister’s death you gave up all 


6 


BLUE HERON COVE 


rights. You acknowledged then that it was her wish 
for me to take control and you allowed the Court to 
appoint me. Nothing has changed. I don’t understand 
you. You have called lately with some hidden purpose. 
Please explain.” 

Fraulein cleared her throat and Aunt Katherine 
looked up. 

“ Here’s the child now,” she said in a cold voice. 

“ Oh, how’de do, Miss — er — your name always es- 
capes me — Hammerschlag ? Thank you. How’de do, 
Stephanie. The child’s well, isn’t she? She was busy 
with massage or something last time I stopped in.” 

Stephanie said nothing. When she used her native 
tongue it went lamely and had flavors of Fraulein and 
Hannchen mixed. 

“ Stephanie does not care to learn English,” her aunt 
would say. At this the small dark face grew sullen. 

Fraulein always liked to talk on these occasions. 

“ The dear child is now well, I trust, and will, unless 
some epidemic seizes on her or an accident, unforeseen 
and therefore by those who have her welfare on the heart 
unpreventable, occurs, in this enviable condition continue 
herself. You wish to hear how she conducts her lessons? 
Naturally. It is a parent’s habitual concern for the wel- 
fare of his progeny. In Arithmetic then we reach the 
decimal. You will say perhaps that this is a slowness 
for one in her eleventh year. Yes, possibly. But con- 
sider only the ill health our little scholar has in the past 
frequently endured — the sore throat, the headache, the 
biliousness, mentioning nothing of measles and similar 
disorders which occur before my time. I have the sorrow 
of saying that for languages the Miss shows small apti- 


THE JUILLIARD 7 

tude. I refer to the French, Spanish, and also the Eng- 
lish tongues. In the Deutsch, thank Gott J she shows a 
natural proficiency, due no doubt to advantages most 
unusual in America, which from infancy she has, thanks 
to admirable foresight of an excellent aunt, particularly 
enjoyed. Only last week has Miss committed on the 
memory more than thirty poems of the ineffable 
Heine ” 

“ Never mind the poet Heine, Fraulein,” interrupted 
Aunt Katherine. “ You and Miss Stephanie can go now. 
It is almost your supper hour. ,, 

Stephanie made a second knix without raising her eyes 
to the tall gentleman’s face and was majestically ushered 
from the room. When the visitor left the Juilliard and 
turned toward the Avenue he walked slowly with head 
bent, and his stick, instead of making curving flourishes, 
struck the pavement slow and even. 

“ A dull, unresponsive little thing — Ellen’s child. She 
doesn’t feel the slightest interest in my existence. All 
taken up with clothes and massage and the Frauleins. 
She’d probably refuse to leave, even if Katherine were 
willing. And what would I do with her anyway? ” He 
pondered moodily and then hit the walk sharply with his 
stick. “ Well, I’ll see that she gets fair play and her for- 
tune honestly dealt with if I can.” 

Stephanie’s father turned into the crowded Avenue 
which led southward to his own hotel. 


CHAPTER II 


A JOURNAL' 

This small book is mein and it is a Journal. One 
makes the Journal from writing every day. Amiel and 
one other French lady made them and Goethe even, as 
he travels. The Journal speaks ever of Nature, Vegeta- 
tion und Mann. Sam in the elevator gives me this 
small book and I say nothings. I could have one secret, 
myself. 

Now as I see how on each side stands one Day I 
determine myself to make the Journal even as Goethe 
and Amiel. But an entirely auf Englisch one. So — I 
learn the Englisch and shall speak him to mein Herr 
Vater once. 

Every Day write I concerning Nature, Vegetation 
(which is very scarce in large Cities), and Mann. And 
of Womans naturally also. 

1 2th February , 1914 
Nature 

From the limousine, who goes so quick, it is not easy 
to view Works of Nature, in particularly in Winter while 
Snow rests on her. I have seen to-day Hudson River, 
Grant’s Tomb, Palisades, and Ferry-Boats, all works of 
great and glorious Nature. But Fraulein sits on that 
side and she being fat is most difficult to overlook. 

8 


9 


A JOURNAL 
Vegetation 

I have count five Vegetations — Pine-tree, Park, Palm, 
Window-Box, Florists. 

Mann 

Mein Herr Vater is the Mann whom I wish to write 
most about Him. He comes Tuesdays or Thursdays and 
is more interesting than any Work of Nature. He is 
splendid and nice and schon and zierlich and edel and 
handsome — I could write a thousand Words over him. 
And he smell heavenly-beautiful. 

Tante Katherine say “Still!” every Time I mention 
him. So — in this Journal I mention him much and hide 
the Journal. 

Woman 

I have known plenty Womans. We have here Tante 
Katherine (named also Countess and Madame from be- 
ing married once to Count von Menzell which I was 
never acquainted mit he dies so long but I know Gustav, 
their son, which live abroad and come sometimes here, 
and I hate him while he plagues me and say I shall go 
abroad in School). So — we have Tante Katherine and 
Fraulein Hammerschlag and Hannchen Dietz and self. 

And I know Mademoiselle and Mr. Carter in the 
Riding-School and Senor Tripas and the Teacher off 
Dancing and Miss Smith and the Masseuse and the 
Housekeeper and the Maids on this Floor. And the 
good Gaston and Elevator-boys and Doorman. And 
Persons all kinds where I go in the Summer. 

And previously many Frauleins have I known — Frau- 
lein Schmidt, Fraulein Fronapfel, Fraulein von Schlo- 
dien, Fraulein Stolz. Before that they are Marie and 


10 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Sophie and Berta and they are mein Nurse. And once 
it was a kind Lotta which tells of Nixies and Kobolds and 
the Rhine fairies, which are pleasanter than klassik 
Works. 

There Was now for our rooms a old cross Chamber- 
maid Delia and I must watch she never find mein Journal 
where I hide it in mein Bed. 

iyth February 
Nature 

Same. Mit more Snow. 

Vegetation 

Same yet. 

Mann 

Mein Herr Vater came. 

Everything goes wrong when Herr Vater comes. I 
get no Chance to learn acquaintance mit. Fraulein talk 
so much and Tante look so cross and say, “ Stephanie 
has no care to speak the Englisch well.” (And it is a 
Lie.) Also myself I get a Fraid. But one Time, Tante 
being from the Room and Fraulein talking of the Poets 
I am behind Herr Vater’s Chair and I touch mit mein 
small Finger where the Collar lies behind his Neck, and 
it tickles nothing. 

The Hairs of mein Herr Vater are so beautiful. They 
fit like from Satin on the Head. 

24th February 
Nature 

Nothings. I have Sorethroat. Mit Sorethroat must 
one stay in and perpetually gargle. 


A JOURNAL ii 

Vegetation 

Same yet. 

Mann 

Herr Vater is not come but I have a new Game to play. 
As I ride and as I walk and at mein Meals Herr Vater 
he is always there and I talk and tell him Things ; speak- 
ing Englisch excellently well. I tell him of this Journal 
and how the h and s go very hard to write and all new and 
heavy Words must one chase out from the great Diction- 
ary the next Day. And I tell him I am the only Child 
in Dancing School which speaks Deutsch alone. And I 
tell him of Gaston which bring our Trays. He is mein 
Friend. And how I hate Cousin Gustav. And I tell 
Herr Vater I wish he would come here every Day and 
be alone together always. So — Fraulein see how I hold 
my one Hand up and she say “ What is this? ” I go mit 
Herr Vater in Hand and she see me how I whisper by 
myself and asks what have I said? But it is to Herr 
Vater I am speaking. 

Except this Game it goes here very dull. 

I have a Worry — there is such great Explosions in 
the Subway. 

As I leave Goodnight mit Tante I ask her, “ Comes 
Herr Vater soon again? myself I worry something ex- 
plodes him in the Subway.” 

But Tante makes cross look and say “ Unsinn! ” 

Tante Katherine is very impolite on me sometimes. 

2d March 

I wonder by myself had Henri-Frederic Amiel any 
Fun when he was young? 

I know how it goes like — having Fun. At Magnolia 


12 


BLUE HERON COVE 


and in the White Mountains Children do it. Their 
Nurses talks together and the Children talk and whisper 
and run in the Veranda. And they jump upon the Rocks 
and they scream and one Boy soils his white Suit mit 
Mud. I have a Fraid to play mit Boys. They run and 
kick and on the Seashore they will throw Sand in a 
Person’s Ears. I stay in the Pergola by Fraulein. But 
I could watch them having all kinds Fun. 

5 th March 

The Property — I write that Word- there very large 
while I have much Curiousness over him. The Property. 
He is something which People talk when they think I 
cannot hear. I learn him first once long before. Mein 
Fraulein which was here then say to Mademoiselle, 
“ Where there is Property there are quarrels.” Then 
they see me standing close and whisper “ sh.” Tante 
and Gustav, each time Gustav come, talk of the Property, 
but they stop when I come near. And now Herr Vater 
and Tante — they too must talk of the Property. 

It is this they speak of before I am in the Room. 
They speak low but angry and as I walk mit Fraulein 
in I see their angry looks. 

Tante shall not make such Looks on Mein Herr Vater. 

Anyway she takes a Headache from it and lies this 
Moment on the Bed, Hannchen says, mit smelling Bottle. 

6th March 

Instead cross Delia we have by this Apartment a new 
Maid, Leona. She has red Hair and name me ever 
“ Dierie.” Myself while I fear she see too well within 
my Bed where I keep this Journal must make Distrac- 


A JOURNAL 13 

tions every Day. Mornings before my lessons I tell her 
the History of my Life. 

13 th March 

An Event arrived to-day which I must immediately sit 
down upon before it forgets itself. 

I have a Friend. 

Her Name is named Sadie Wienerwurst. She live 
near to Columbus Avenue in Malaria Apartments (or 
such a Name) and her Vater live there by her ! 

It comes like this: — Fraulein has, herself, the Sore- 
throat and must perpetually gargle. 

Now the Sun shines bright and Tante being out Hann- 
chen singt: 

" Ya, ya , ya, ya! 

Weisst nicht wie gut ich dir bin ” 

Also she is happy and we go in the Central Park. 

I love that Central Park to walk in him. Hannchen 
too, must love him now while there in the Mall she meets 
a Deutschland Friend name Max. They are so rejoice 
to meet they must sit on one green Bench and talk most 
loudly of the Vaterland. (Never before am I on any 
Park Bench to sit.) 

After while I am weary of that Talk and I go upon 
another Bench alone. 

On the Walk before me goes a Girl on Rollerskates. 
Coat like some kinds of Furniture she wear and one 
Braid of Hair and a Cap mit Buttons. It is not, how- 
ever, the clothes which please, but the wonderful Per- 
formance, now mit the one foot, soon mit another, always 
mit Gum in the Mouth. 


i 4 BLUE HERON COVE 

Suddenly she stop and sit next to me'on mein Bench 
and say, “ Hullo. ,, 

I think in mein Interior this truly is a healthy Child. 
(It is while so many Children are contagious one may 
not speak to them.) And I too, say “ Hullo.’’ 

In one Moment that Girl and I are Friends together. 
We talk and tell ourselves every things in the World. 
Sadie names her name and address and I names mein 
name and address and Sadie names her School, which 
is Public School Number 179 and I say I have the 
Lessons by mein Fraulein and Mademoiselle and the 
others. And Sadie say “ How you talk funny like some 
kind of Dago ? ” I say “ What is Dago ? Are you 
Dago?” And Sadie say “No sir, American. We are 
all in New York City born, Fritz and Emma and Walter 
and Klaus and Sophie. I can learn you to talk like other 
kids,” and I say “ That is just how I wish to learn the 
good Englisch of other kids.” So — I learn much new 
Words from Sadie and some even she write on the Walk 
mit a Stick Chalk. They are : Cop, Swell-guys, Rough- 
necks, Lid, Nifty, Afraid Cat, Just crazy, I should 
Worry, Gee. We tell each other all kinds Secrets — 
What we rather have to eat — What we think on Religion 
and what color Hair Ribbons. And Sadie ask which you 
like most, Koni or the Movies?” And I say “Myself, 
I have never taste either.” “ They are not to eat. They 
are Shows named Koni Island and Moving Pictures. 
Hasn’t your Vater ever took you there?” “Never,” 
and Sadie say “ Well, water you know about that ? ” And 
I say “ Yes, I know about Water.” But she mean noth- 
ing of Water. She but speak that way every time she 
is surprise. Und then she tell of her Vater. 


55 


A JOURNAL 

He lives right in that Apartment mit Sadie, the Mama, 
the Grandmama, three Brother, Two Sister, and one 
Baby. Every Evenings, as he comes in, he brings Some- 
things nice in the Pocket — Popcorn, Gum and jumping 
Toys from Rabbits. Every Saturdays he must take all 
the Small Ones on some Shows. And Evenings after 
the Supper he plays Games — Tag, Rough-haus, and all 
kinds Games. And they could climb upon every part of 
their Vater. And they name him Pop. 

He has a Business of Delikatessen and lives on the top 
of it. 

Sadie now say, “You come round by our House 
Saturday. Get your Nurse to bring you, and I ask 
Pop he shall take you to the Show by us.” And 
I say, “ I thank you Sadie, I have one Music Teacher 
then.” 

“ Well, how is this — I come down to your House any 
Day you choose ? ” 

Now I must hang the Head. I have shame that Sadie 
come and find by me no Vater. 

But I think and say, “ When you come Tuesday at 
Five mein Vater is by me then.” 

“ Shall he take us out some Place ? ” 

And I promise, “ Yes.” 

It was now that Hannchen call me and I must take 
Adieu from Sadie. She presents one Stick Gum and as 
she goes away calls out, 

“ No fun to-day,” and “ See you Tuesday sure.” 

And I look behind and she look behind and does wink 
on me mit the Hand. 

I should worry. I should worry the whole Night and 
disconcert mein Bed and throw the Blankets on the Floor. 


16 BLUE HERON COVE 

At last have I switch on the Nightlight to write down 
that Worry: 

If Herr Vater might not come next Tuesday, What? 
If he come how shall he ever guess it is proper he 
invite Sadie and me on Koni Island ? 

Sadie has no Eleganz. She wears that Coat like brown 
Furniture and that brown Cap mit on the both sides two 
white Buttons and the Shoes of Sadie are wrinkled. 
Such a Girl, shall the Doorman let her in I wonder? 
And shall they telephone her name, Miss Sadie Wiener- 
wurst? And shall Tante Katherine become nifty? 

Had I one Vater to live here by me I should worry 
nothings. 

And it could be nicer than Mr. Wienerwurst or any 
other child’s Pop, while mein Herr Vater is of a Dear- 
ness most extraordinary. 


CHAPTER III 


PLANS 

Something was in the air in Apartment Seven A, 
Hotel Juilliard. 

The Countess von Menzell was the one that knew. 
Undoubtedly her son Gustav knew also, for he advised 
her in many things, but he lived abroad. 

When Fraulein Hammerschlag handed Madame a list 
of new school-books and asked for money to buy them 
Madame said they would not be needed. 

When Hannchen answered the telephone it was a mes- 
sage from a steamship office, or it was the hotel office 
wishing to ask Madame about the suite, or it was a stor- 
age company. And when she brought the mail there 
were several letters all at once from Madame’s son, and 
also a new postmark, Dresden. 

Gaston, the waiter, seemed to have something on his 
mind. 

Leona, the chambermaid, acted very odd at times. 

The only one totally unconscious was the one most 
involved. She had no attention to spare for what was 
going on around her. All she could think of was next 
Tuesday afternoon. 

Never had she done so bold a thing before. To invite 
a visitor, and not a friend of Aunt Katherine’s at all, 
tiot a dancing-school person even, but a strange acquaint- 
ance of the Park ! She was forbidden to talk to strange 

17 


i8 


BLUE HERON COVE 


children anywhere. Not that she ever wanted to. She 
was afraid of children, especially boys, and those in the 
dancing-class made the hour unbearable, calling her 
“ Schnaps and Pretzels.” Some of them talked German 
with their Frauleins, but at all other times they spoke 
English, very fast, with funny words mixed in like 
“ punk ” and “ skiddoo.” She wished she could talk like 
that. Why was it they knew how and she did not ? She 
pronounced these words over to herself and wondered 
what they meant. 

But Sadie had been friendly. Sadie did not make fun 
of her. Sadie could teach her those new words. 

Aunt Katherine had visitors; why not she? Two 
parties had been given for her in the ballroom of another 
hotel, but there was no fun in that. It would be fun 
having Sadie come and if the whole plan could be carried 
out it would be allerliebst. 

Yes, but how was that to be ? 

First, would they let Sadie in? No one at all like 
Sadie did go through the revolving doors, at least while 
Stephanie was outside waiting in the limousine. Very 
few children went in the Juilliard, but if they did they 
were not like Sadie — more like herself. You could tell 
Sadie was not of them — the doorman himself could tell, 
by her coat, her cap, her braid chopped off at the end 
like a brush, the ribbon so stringy, the shoes so creased 
and dusty, and that way she chewed the gum, in one 
side of her mouth. 

But supposing Sadie and all her peculiarities once safe 
inside and at the clerk’s desk, what then? Would he 
s ave her telephoned, “-Miss Wienerwurst to see Miss 
Rand ? ” Then up here in the apartment Hannchen would 


PLANS 


19 


pass it on to Tante, “ Miss Wienerwurst.” Tante would 
raise her eyebrows and wrinkle her nose slightly — 
“Wienerwurst?” — like that. And then explanations 
must begin. 

Now supposing all this safely over, how would the 
time go by till Herr Vater came? She could show the 
dolls and toys. There was a whole cabinet full of them. 
But they were stupid objects and would not keep Sadie 
from noticing and asking questions. “ Where is your 
Herr Vater T” “Will he be in soon?” “Why! 
Doesn’t he live here ? ” 

And if Herr Vater arrived first? She must then have 
the boldness to tell him before Tante Katherine and 
Fraulein that he was expected to take her and a strange 
girl (explanation about meeting Sadie in the Park) to 
that “ Koni Island ” (explanation that such was the cus- 
tom of Mr. Wienerwurst). 

Stephanie with all this on her mind went around like 
a sleepwalker. 

On Saturday morning she said cautiously to Hann- 
chen, 

“ Hannchen, did you notice two days ago in the Park a 
girl?” 

“ What kind of a girl ? ” 

“A roller-skating girl who sat and talked with me 
while you were with your friend from the Fatherland.” 
Stephanie spoke German, as always in her own house- 
hold. 

Hannchen eyed Stephanie’s reflection in the glass. 

“ What does the Miss know about that friend of mine 
from Germany ? ” 

“ I know nothing of him. I think only of that girl.” 


20 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ You say nothing about him to Madame? ” 

“ No indeed, why should I? I interest myself only in 
the girl that talks with me and even her I have not men- 
tioned to Tante because — because — Hannchen, she is 
called Sadie Wienerwurst and I find her most agreeable. 
Do you think ” 

“ Listen, little Miss, I have indeed seen how you mak| 
acquaintance with a strange child in the Park but I hold 
my mouth and say nothing to the Hammer or Madame. 
I make no trouble. See that you do the same. Keep 
silence over my affairs and I will keep it over yours. 
If all goes well we may both enjoy ourselves in Central 
Park.” 

She nodded her head many times and then watched 
Stephanie narrowly and said, 

“ I suppose you cannot tell me what it is that wakes 
Madame so early in the morning?” 

“ Tante up already? ” 

“ Yes, and has given orders that you have no lessons 
but shall visit Helene’s with her and afterward the den- 
tist’s and be fitted to a whole new outfit. Do you know 
anything of this? ” 

“ No. It is not time for the dentist; I don’t go there 
till May, before we leave New York. I’m glad there are 
no lessons but it is stupid at Helene’s too. I have plenty 
of frocks. What do you think it is for? ” 

Hannchen shrugged. “ There is something afoot I 
don’t understand. Perhaps Fraulein Hammerschlag 
does. She sticks the nose into everything. What I hope 
is that nothing shall spoil my plans, with Max just come 
and everything right for a good time.” 

Well, Hannchen could be managed; they had made 


PLANS 


21 


bargains like this before. At the same time it was best 
to be wary in consulting her. Stephanie thought of 
Leona, the new chambermaid, and of Gaston, who was 
a discreet person and her friend. And she thought 
how it would be best of all to explain things beforehand 
to Herr Vater himself. 

But that was only a wish and she knew it was out of 
the question. No use scheming to go into the hall and 
watch for him to come up. She had tried it once and 
gotten a terrible scolding. She had even thought of hid- 
ing in Aunt Katherine’s sitting-room behind the sofa and 
popping out before Tante was ready. But she would 
never really dare. 

All this filled her mind as she waited, a pale, bored 
little girl, in a big chintz-upholstered chair at the dress- 
maker’s, or stepped in and out of the limousine in the 
shadow of her imposing aunt. She was used to shopping. 
Tante loved clothes and she herself had prettier frocks 
than any other children that she saw. But to get them 
was ever the same tedious business. 

On Monday the Countess’ preparations could not be 
kept secret any longer in her own household. 

Stephanie came in with Hannchen from a visit to the 
dentist’s and lo ! their rooms were full of trunks. They 
had been brought in from the store-room and were stand- 
ing everywhere, more trunks and boxes than were ever 
got together for their going away in May. 

And Mademoiselle was there, saying she had come to 
say farewell. She had received a note of dismissal from 
Madame. 

“ What a surprise to find Fraulein Hammerschlag 
packs her trunk and will leave also ! ” 


22 BLUE HERON COVE 

Fraulein came into the school-room and her eyes and 
nose were red. 

“ It is true. Three days’ notice with no other reason 
than that Madame made other plans for Fraulein 
Stephanie! This is a strange treatment for one so 
deeply versed in the classics. I cannot understand. A 
few weeks ago I have Madame’s assurance that I am 
engaged for another year — and now this sudden dis- 
solution, this complete departure, as indicated by trunks. 
But where or when I know not. However, the maid is 
not dismissed, she is good enough to be kept and doubt- 
less can tell us everything.” 

“ Can I ! ” snapped Hannchen in German. “ There 
you are mistaken for I am told no more than the Miss 
herself. I take orders. I suspect something. But these 
boxes are the first to tell me the worst. I don’t like it 
any more than you.” 

Stephanie had stood all this time in the middle of the 
floor listening to each in turn and staring round. Other 
Frauleins and Mademoiselles she had seen come and go, 
and luggage had been packed when Aunt Katherine went 
south or abroad, or they left New York in May. But 
there was something disturbing about this, about the way 
they talked and the packing boxes intruding everywhere. 

She followed Hannchen into the next room. “ Please, 
Hannchen, what does it mean ? I did not know we were 
going anywhere. Is it to Hot Springs ? That is such a 
tiresome place. Shall I have no mademoiselle until the 
Fall and then a new one? And why is Fraulein Ham- 
merschlag dismissed? She has stolen no fur collar as 
did Fraulein Stolz, and she surely does not make a wed- 
ding like Fraulein Biederbaum, and Lotta long ago. 


PLANS 


23 


With a nose as Fraulein’s there is surely no prospect of 
weddings. Is Tante going away too? When do we 
start? Not to-morrow surely? I must be here to- 
morrow afternoon.” 

As Hannchen stepped around Stephanie’s room putting 
away the hat behind mahogany doors in the wall, the 
gloves in their box in the chiffonier, the coat and muff 
on a chair to be carried out to the clothesroom where they 
always hung, Stephanie kept beside her, looking in her 
face and asking these questions. At length Hannchen 
went and looked out in the hall, then shut the door care- 
fully. 

“ Listen. Has Miss ever heard any talk of Dres- 
den?” 

“ Dresden ! There is where the school is which Gustav 
speaks of last time he is here. He tells Tante it is a good 
place for me and when I speak and say I like America 
best they both look at each other as if they suddenly 
remember I am there.” She drew a quick breath. 
“ Why do you speak of that city ? ” 

“ Because the name is on several letters which Madame 
has lately posted and on one which she receives. And 
I hear her speak that name to a man who calls on busi- 
ness. And it stands written on card.s which are pre- 
pared, I think, for the luggage. That is why I mention 
Dresden.” 

“ Hannchen! What is it that you think? ” 

“ I think Madame and you and I shall leave here soon 
in a big ship. How soon I don’t know but this looks 
like something quick. It has all been since two weeks 
ago. She wrote letters very fast one night after Herr 
Rand called. I have suspected things but could not know 


24 


BLUE HERON COVE 


how soon. What a bother! It spoils everything. I 
would give notice except that it takes me to the old 
country and I suppose I may get leave to go and see my 
cousins. That will be something.” 

Stephanie had nothing more to say. She crept out to 
the school-room and pressed her forehead against the 
glass at her favorite window. She tried to think. Every- 
thing seemed to whirl. She must get up her courage to 
ask Tante what it really meant. 

Every evening at half-past seven Stephanie went into 
her aunt’s room to say good-night. At this time Aunt 
Katherine almost always stood or sat before a mirror 
being helped to dress by a girl named Marie, who came in 
from outside just for that. Tante would inquire if 
Stephanie had had a pleasant day, how her throat felt 
and whether she had tried on her new frocks. To-night 
she asked especially about a certain white silk coat, 
then said “ Gutnacht” put her lips somewhere near 
Stephanie’s ear and was looking all the time at the effect 
of an ornament against her lace. After she had decided 
about it she was surprised to find Stephanie there beside 
her yet. 

“What is it? Isn’t Hannchen waiting for you?” 

“ Yes, Tante, certainly.” To ask anything of Aunt 
Katherine always took extra breath and made one’s 
words step on each other’s toes. “ But I like — I hear 
— I wish — there are many trunks and boxes but it is 
surely not true that I shall go to school in Dresden?” 

Madame laid down her hand mirror. 

“ Who has been talking to you ? ” 

“No one, Tante, but Hannchen sees a letter with 
the address.” 


PLANS 


25 


“ Hannchen is inquisitive and forward like all other 
servants.” 

“And Cousin Gustav spoke of it. Fraulein and 
Mademoiselle are dismissed and everything makes me 
wonder. Cousin Gustav laughed at me and said I was 
too much American. But I am American, I like it best 
here. I want to learn the English, to speak it excellently 
well and have nice words like * punk ’ and ‘ cops,’ and 
I know a girl who could teach me, too. To-morrow 
when Herr V at er comes I would like to talk to him a min- 
ute. Pardon, Tante, if I speak to him just a minute alone 
together about a thing — a secret. Other girls whose 
fathers live there can tell them any little thing. If I were 
in Dresden would Her Vater come there often? ” 

“ Go into the next room, Marie. Take the chiffon to 
mend. Now, Stephanie, has any one beside Hannchen 
talked to you? ” 

“ No, Tante.” 

“ That is all right then. No one knows yet and see 
that you say nothing until after to-morrow. Yes, you 
are to go to school in Dresden. Your Cousin Gustav 
and I have decided it is best. You are getting too old 
for the present arrangement and I don’t care for Ameri- 
can schools. Of course the plan is agreeable to me as I 
can be near Gustav, and in any case I prefer living over 
there. When I returned after the Count’s death I did 
not expect to stay, but your mother died and left you 
in my charge and I have stayed ten years — long enough 
surely. The school we have chosen is a famous one. 
You’ll soon enjoy it there. I don’t know what you mean 
about your father; you mustn’t bother him with ques- 
tions. He may not call to-morrow afternoon ” 


26 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ What ! not come at all to-morrow ? ” 

" No, some other day before we go will do as well. 
Now hurry off to bed.” 

After Stephanie had gone Madame sat thinking a mo- 
ment and her determined, cold face expressed her 
thought : “ It is well the change is being made at once.” 

There were two points she had not cared to mention ; 
— that they were to leave on Wednesday evening and 
that she meant to take good care to keep Mr. Rand away 
altogether, for their going was a secret from him most 
of all. 

The Countess von Menzell was Stephanie’s legal guar- 
dian, having been so appointed after the death of her 
sister, the child’s mother. The mother had wished it; 
the father had consented, not knowing what to do with 
a small girl baby on his hands. She was a sickly child 
and for years he scarcely saw her. 

Meanwhile the Countess was making her own plans, or 
letting her son, a very sharp young German, make them 
for her. Stephanie had inherited a fortune. Her Cousin 
Gustav wished to have the handling of it. Everything 
had run smoothly for him until npw, but she was getting 
to an age when uncomfortable things could happen. She 
might want to go to her father and he might persuade 
the courts to give her back to him. That would not suit 
Gustav at all. On his last visit to New York he had 
warned his mother about this. 

Then suddenly she was warned in another way. Her 
brother-in-law himself began to hint at it. 

Not that he seemed to grow any fonder of his daugh- 
ter. She knew he thought the child cared nothing for 
him and he had given up making advances to her. But 







n %; 




' ’£Wm 

IIHH 


■->■-. v 


Stephanie repeated in a shaky voice 














































. 




















































































































PLANS 


27 


something else was on his mind. He said things that 
sounded threatening. Madame felt alarmed and she de- 
cided on sudden, secret arrangements of her own. 

Stephanie, after Hannchen had turned out the light 
and left her, lay stiff and still till she heard certain steps 
go by and doors shut, then she popped up straight in bed. 

While she was being undressed she had thought out a 
way. It was a hard way and probably very naughty. 
But she resolved to go ahead and try it. 

Her aunt had gone out and so had Marie. Hannchen, 
who was supposed to sit just outside her door, had slipped 
away into the hotel corridor, as she did every night as 
soon as the coast was clear. Fraulein had been out all 
the evening; she was to leave for good to-morrow. 
Stephanie was the only person in. 

She turned on the little pink-shaded light on the stand 
by her bed, crept into the hall and brought back the big 
telephone book. There was a telephone on the wall of 
her own room, too high for her, but safer than the low 
one outside her door. 

“ Vanderdorf, Plaza 55,400.” 

She closed her door softly and climbed on a brocaded 
chair. 

“ Vanderdorf, Plaza 55,400.” 

“ What number, please? ” 

Stephanie repeated in a shaky voice. She knew the 
telephone lady downstairs by sight; she wore eyeglasses 
and looked rather cross. 

Only a few times had Stephanie used the instrument 
before — times when Fraulein was out and Hannchen 
didn't want to bother. But people couldn’t understand 
her, and besides, Madame found out and forbade it. 


28 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Hotel Vanderdorf,” a snappy voice was saying. 

“ Please I like to spik on Mis-ter Rand.” 

“ Who?” 

“ Please, Mis-ter Rand, Mis-ter Alan Rand.” 

Then came a long wait while the receiver grew heavy 
in her hand and every muffled tread in the distant cor- 
ridor might be Hannchen’s. 

“ Mr. Rand is not in his rooms.” 

“ Ach! ” she had not thought of this possibility. “ He 
come soon herein , you think ? ” 

“ What?” 

“ If he is not soon — right away — I am useless to spik, 
and that is bad, while it may not come another chance 
to spik mit 

“ 1 can’t understand a word you say,” and the voice 
could be heard telling some one else, “ Say, there’s a party 
talking Dutch.” 

“ Maybe you please say him something for me when 
he come. Say, a message, yes?” This was an idea 
born of urgency. 

“ Oh, a message. Yes, you can leave a message.” 

Stephanie drew a long breath and started in : 

“ Please say this message on him. Say I invite a girl 
of the Central Park name Sadie Wienerwurst come to- 
morrow round here and have promise Mein Herr Vater 
shall on Coney Island take the both. Say on him, please 
excuse such liberty but it is while Mr. Wienerwurst mit 
Klaus and Sophie and Sadie and Ignatz and the baby 
make so like that, I promise how Mein Herr Vater make 
the same. And say him the thing to do is to come early 
and send in telephone the word, ‘ Mr. Rand wish Miss 
Stephanie come right down on him.’ So-o — I go down 


PLANS 


29 


and we wait together in some great black chairs of leather 
who stand in lobby here till Sadie come and we plan 
someway I need not to go abroad. I lieber not to go. 
Dresden is too far. I lieber stay by him. Say please, 
this whole message and I think this is the all of him and 
I thank you and I ask pardon I spik so rap-idd while here 
kommt Hannchen. Adieu.” 

She slammed up the receiver and jumped into bed. So 
comfortable did she feel to have everything arranged that 
she dropped off to sleep before Hannchen opened the door 
and looked in at her. 

In the middle of the night she woke to find the big 
telephone book beneath her spinal column. No wonder 
she had dreamt of camels. 


CHAPTER IV 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 

On the same Monday about the time that Stephanie in 
New York came back to the Juilliard and found the 
trunks, Mr. Alan Rand was entering the old ferry wharf 
at the foot of Market Street, Philadelphia. 

He strolled over to the ticket window in the corner and 
inquired, “ Is there a train from Blue Heron, Cranberry 
County, due here about now ? ” 

“ Number 28, due at Camden 10.35, twenty minutes 
late.” 

Mr. Rand bought a ferry ticket in order to pass into 
the waiting-room, where there were seats, and found a 
place on one of the circular forms around a pillar in the 
middle of the room. Being an impatient person he hated 
delay, and being a New Yorker he blamed the wait on 
William Penn. He said to himself that he might have 
done a dozen important things in this twenty minutes. 
Then second thoughts settled him back against the post. 
After all this was the important thing he had come from 
New York very early in the morning to accomplish — to 
meet a lady from Blue Heron whom he knew from recol- 
lection would be highly flustered if he missed her. 

Twenty minutes — that meant forty. Why, he remem- 
bered now, that morning train was always at least forty 
minutes late in winter. You lost a half-hour at, what 
was the place? Cedar Swamp Junction — waiting for 
30 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


3i 


the W. J. and S. to come up out of the pine woods; or 
storms had tied up the road at Barkantine and washed 
out the bridge at Bog Island Bonnet. 

He tried to find Cedar Swamp Junction in the time- 
table but could not because it had been changed by a 
Land Improvement Company to “ Harboretta Vista.” 
Blue Heron itself was still there luckily, and Cox’s Run 
and Tide Marsh Neck and Newasiwak and Cranberry 
Low Bottom. 

The time-table faded from his gaze. Waiting-room, 
gates, ticket-taker vanished. Across Blue Heron 
meadows on a spring morning a train clattered between 
the ocean and Swallow Bay. Pale blue the water under 
the pale March sky, which was filmed over here and there 
by soft clouds like your breath on a window pane. From 
the train window a young fellow looked back longingly 
towards the village, to a square, weather-beaten old house 
where the figure of a little spare woman waving persis- 
tently could be distinguished, and to the station platform 
where a boy his own age stood with face toward the 
receding train. 

The bay was sure to be covered with wild fowl — red- 
heads, mallards, bald-pates, and even a canvas-back may- 
be in his black-penciled white suit — sailing along close to 
the bridge, until startled by the train, the ducks rose in 
long black streaks against the sky. And he was going 
back to town to leave it all ! 

Behind him his Easter vacation at Cap’n Price’s, Miss 
Janet’s oyster pies and affectionate fussing, long evenings 
of talk and yarns round the stove in the old store, long 
days of sport on Swallow Bay with Steve Price, his 
beloved pal. Before him office grind and boarding- 


32 


BLUE HERON COVE 


house fare to be endured till summer brought him back 
to Blue Heron once more. 

Twenty-five years ago ! and he had let them all slip out 
of his life. When he called for Miss Janet Price by long 
distance yesterday he did not know for a certainty that 
the name existed any longer at Blue Heron. Now he 
found himself all eagerness for news. Steve might have 
married, settled, had children. Perhaps he lived in this 
city; perhaps owned a line of sloops. A fine promising 
fellow like Steve would make his way anywhere. 

Mr. Rand snapped open his watch. Time for Number 
28 at last. 

He folded away his newspaper and stood up to watch 
a crowd of passengers rushing from the boat. 

A small, worried-looking woman, who had waited till 
the last on account of all the packages she had to carry, 
especially a heavy peach-basket with a rope handle, sud- 
denly heard a voice above her. 

“ Let me relieve you of those,” and she looked up 
inquiringly at the figure of a tall, imposing stranger. 

But there was something in this gentleman’s expression 
which, after one moment of timid scrutiny, made her 
shed her basket and bundles in all directions. 

“Oh, Mr. Alan!” 

While he shook her hands he said nothing but kept the 
same expression. 

“ Oh, Mr. Alan, how you have changed ! And yet 
when you looked at me I seemed to see you a young lad 
once more. Twenty-five years, isn’t it, or twenty-six, 
since you came in June? I counted up last night.” This 
reminded her of something, even while the tears stood 
in her eyes. “ It was after the telephoning, Mr. Alan. 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


33 


I hope it won’t be necessary for you to do that again.” 

“ Do what?” 

“ Call me by telephone. I was quite upset when they 
sent over from Ed Bissell’s store and spoke of ‘ long dis- 
tance,’ and then when I heard your voice and understood 
you were in New York City my limbs almost gave way 
under me. From New York City to Blue Heron — think 
of it! And the great expense. Ought you to incur it? ” 

Mr. Rand burst out laughing. “ You haven’t changed, 
Miss Janet, anyway. Now what arc these? Here, 
porter ! Take this lady’s packages. Call a taxi and put 
them in.” 

Miss Janet Price reached for her bundles in alarm. 

“ Oh, no thank you. No, I couldn’t let you take 
them,” she shook her head at the porter. “ I couldn’t 
let him carry these, Mr. Alan. Only little presents for 
some of our boarders but I know just how to take hold 
of them. Some fresh weakfish and a few clams at the 
bottom which do add to the weight; a brace of ducks 
Cap’n Bill shot ; some of our fresh eggs. These smaller 
parcels are merely things the neighbors asked me to 
attend to, as I was coming to town, you know. Mrs. 
Pharo’s feathers, Mrs. Nummy’s — ahem — just a package 
of Mrs. Nummy’s, the Tonkins’ parlor-lamp, and a few 
little articles of mine beside. There was scarcely time 
for everything, I come up to town so seldom ” 

Mr. Rand picked up all the packages and stacked them 
into the porter’s arms. Miss Janet opened her jips to 
protest. Then she meekly gave in, just as she had 
always done to a domineering lad twenty years ago. 

Outside came another halt. 

“ Oh, an automobile ? Oh, you must please excuse 


34 


BLUE HERON COVE 


me — I really couldn’t. The street-cars are right over 
there. I’ve become accustomed to them, though I gen- 
erally walk up the hill to get on, for if they should lose 
control and slide down I should hate to think afterward 
that perhaps my weight had been the last straw. How- 
ever they are a convenience. But an automobile — no, I 
really couldn’t.” 

“ Miss Janet, you must. It’s snowing.” 

“ Is it ? ” She glanced downward. “ Mr. Alan, you 
haven't any rubbers on! In this weather ! Now do buy 
some at once, if you haven’t brought them with you. I 
will — yes, I will get in, if you will make it go to some 
store where you can purchase a good high pair.” 

“ Surely they don’t wear rubbers nowadays at Blue 
Heron ? ” said Mr. Rand as he took his seat beside her. 
But Miss Janet was sitting on the edge of her seat. 

“ I’ve never been in one before, though they pass our 
house constantly on the new boulevard.” 

“ How is Cap’n Price, Miss Janet ? ” 

This served to get her attention. She settled back and 
looked troubled in a different way. “ I’m afraid you 
would think there was a great difference in my father, 
Mr. Alan. He was still a hale and hearty man when 
you were there, though the trouble with Cap’n Tom New- 
bold about the stolen money had begun before that, I 
think.” 

“ Yes, I remember about it.” 

“ The money was a great loss to us but I think Tom 
Newbold acting so treacherous was what father couldn’t 
get over. Then Steve’s death broke him entirely.” 

" Steve dead ! Miss Janet — I never knew it.” 

“ I didn’t know how to send word to you. Yes, he 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


35 


slipped between his boat and the dock and his hip was 
crushed so that he died afterward. They said Cap'n 
Newbold was on the dock right near and never put out 
a hand to keep her off, but I don't wish to believe that. 
Well, father changed then. He's very peculiar and for- 
getful at times. They had made Ed Bissell postmaster 
and of course all the trade went to his store, and that 
nearly broke father's heart. I use the store for a dining- 
room for the boarders, but father always makes such a 

fuss. Not that " Miss Janet drew herself up. 

“ Not that he is childish or useless. My father is a very 
fine man and his mentality is totally unimpaired." 

Seeing that this was a delicate subject Mr. Rand did 
not press it. He was trying to master his disappoint- 
ment. Steve gone! Then he would never know that 
he had meant to keep faith with him, and in one matter 
had done so against much opposition. 

By this time they had progressed some distance up 
Market Street through the crowded traffic. 

“ We’ll take a drive through the parks and end up 
at the Belleview-Stratford for lunch," he said. 

“ Isn't that a very expensive place ? There’s a very 
nice dairy lunch near here. And besides, I am so sorry 
but I think I had better get out and go and deliver the 
fish, and the clams, and the eggs, and those two ring- 
necks." 

Mr. Alan Rand, who had accustomed himself for many 
years to making plans solely for Mr. Alan Rand, glow- 
ered at the motley packages. But when he met the 
deprecating eyes of their owner his face relaxed to 
a grin. 

“ I guess you will. This air is getting a trifle fishy. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


36 

As for the birds I haven’t traveled through Philadelphia 
with a brace of ring-necks since I brought some from 
Blue Heron and afterwards left them in a roll-top desk 
in the Penn-Urban Building by mistake. Whew! ” 

It seemed the fresh fish and clams were destined for 
Germantown, the eggs for West Philadelphia and the 
brace of ducks for an old gentleman who lived south of 
Market Street. 

Thus the plans which should have been unfolded in a 
quiet room at the hotel had to be told as they went along. 
Mr. Rand found it hard to begin. Harder still, after he 
had plunged in, to make Miss Janet understand. 

At the first mention of the subject of these plans she 
sat up quickly and her face flushed with delight. 

“ Oh, Mr. Alan ! And I never knew you had a little 
girl ! ” 

Her next comment was : “ Lives with her aunt ? I 
don’t understand. You can’t mean you live somewhere 
else and not with your own child ? ” 

Thus it was necessary to go back into the past, which 
he would rather have avoided. He told a few facts in 
a brief, hard way and finished : “ So you can see it was 
her mother’s wish. I was alone in the world, totally 
unfit to have the charge of a mere baby. Besides, it 

became a question of the child’s fortune — and 

Well, a fellow has some pride. I would rather have 
been shot than raise a hand to touch it ! 

“ That was ten years ago. I was away two years and 
she always seemed to be sick when she was little. But 
of late years I’ve been to see her regularly in town. I 
suppose these arrangements would keep right on if these 
double dealings hadn’t come to my attention.” 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


37 


“ Double dealings? ” 

Yes, he had almost positive proof of it. Stephanie’s 
aunt had been recreant to her trust. That is, she had 
given over the investment of a large portion of Ste- 
phanie’s fortune to her son, Gustav, who lived abroad. 
“ A young scamp and gambler but the only being Kath- 
erine really loves beside herself.” When Mr. Rand went 
on about South American mining stocks — high dividends 
— nothing coming back to the trust fund — Miss 
Janet Price became very nervous and put up her 
hand. 

“ Don’t try to tell me. Money matters — words like 
* dividends ’ — give me a singing in the head. My mind 
is getting confused.” 

Mr. Rand went on. Though he had not yet absolute 
proof, information which had come into his hands had 
led him to ask on other pretexts for the custody of the 
child. If she became his ward he could look after her 
property, he explained. This was refused. Two days 
ago came the alarming discovery that the Countess von 
Menzell was making hasty plans to carry the child off 
secretly to a German school. 

“ And that is why I had to think in a hurry. And 
when I thought of you and had the nerve to hope that 
after all these years you might be the same Miss Janet 
to me, I called you up and routed you out of Blue Heron 
at some unearthly hour this morning and I posted down 
here to meet you. You see it’s now or never.” 

He began to set forth his plans, made in haste under 
the pressure of necessity. 

“ The best help has come from my man, Boals. Re- 
member Boals ? He used to run an elevator in the Penn- 


BLUE HERON COVE 


38 

Urban Building when I was there, and I think he went 
down to Blue Heron with me, once; an undersized fellow 
with big ears? ” 

Miss Janet remembered all about Mr. Boals. 

“ Well, some weeks ago when I first learned of this I 
asked Boals to find out, if he could, when Gustav von 
Menzell was expected in New York again, and he man- 
aged to get acquainted with some of the help at the Juil- 
liard — a waiter, Gaston Jeannerot, who had served meals 
to their apartment for a long time, and some of the 
maids. A friend of his, named Leona, had herself put 
on that floor. That was how this new scheme became 
known to me. It seems Boals has felt a deep dislike of 
my sister-in-law for many years. He’s a smart little chap 
and faithful to me — I suppose. One can’t tell. It’s his 
interest to be.” 

Miss Janet, troubled by his hard tone, said in a low 
voice, “ I am sure Mr. Boals would go through fire and 
water for you.” 

And now at length he began to set forth her part in 
this — the part, that is, that he hoped she would assume. 
They were at lunch by this time in the Belleview-Strat- 
ford restaurant. Some curious glances were attracted to 
them, for Miss Janet Price wore country clothes and she 
had an odd little pointed face, tanned and deeply 
wrinkled with worry. What was her connection with 
that thoroughbred man of the world and what was he 
breaking to her that caused such disconcerted shaking of 
her black felt bonnet? (It was shaken at the waiter too 
when she explained to him why she could not eat : — she 
was all upset by meeting an old friend and riding in an 
automobile for the first time.) 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


39 


At first Mr. Rand had said something that caused her 
unmixed pleasure. 

“ You don’t mean — do you really mean you wish to 
send your little girl to us, to Blue Heron ? ” 

“ Yes, if you’re willing.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Alan, how delightful ! I do love children 
so. And this one is yours. I can hardly believe that 
you would trust her to me. When do you say she is 
coming? Thursday! Not this Thursday? Oh, my 
goodness, I must get right back and set the south chamber 
in order, have the small chunk stove put up, order a 
barrel of sugar, and bacon — does she like bacon? ” 

“ Sit down, Miss Janet. You can telegraph all that.” 

“ Telegraph to Mrs. Bill ? Oh, that wouldn’t do at all. 
Mrs. Bill Pharo, young Cap’n Pharo of the Life Saving 
Station’s wife, is there looking after father, and she has 
had no experience with telegrams. She was Maria 
Crammer. Besides, how could I tell her where the stove 
is in ten words ? ” 

“ See here, Miss Janet, you aren’t to stew and worry 
about this. If you do me this great kindness in addition 
to past kindnesses for which I’ve returned you nothing 
but neglect, it’s to be on my own terms. We’ll discuss 
that later. Now listen ! ” 

Mr. Rand talked steadily on and thought he was mak- 
ing himself clear until Miss Janet said: 

“ But Mr. Alan, if you just asked for your little girl 
I don’t see how they could refuse.” And then, after 
more explaining, “ Couldn’t you just go up there and 
take her by the hand and walk away ? ” 

“ No, no, that couldn’t be done. Don’t you see that 
her aunt is the legal guardian and has the law on her 


40 


BLUE HERON COVE 


side and could make a great scene and have me stopped ? 
But if I can get Stephanie spirited away out of reach 
first and then tell the Countess what I know, I think she 
will give her up to protect Gustav. Anyway Blue Heron 
is a very safe place until things are settled, and Stephanie 
must go by another name there for awhile. You’ll have 
all the fun of naming her over again, Miss Janet.” 

And now he came to the part that troubled him most, 
for he had not been able to work it out himself : — how 
best to get Stephanie from New York to Blue Heron. 
He must stay in the city to see her guardian at once. It 
would be best to send her, part way at least, by auto- 
mobile. 

But who could be entrusted with that task? Boals? 
He couldn’t drive a car. Some friend? Some hired 
chauffeur? He ran through the possibilities and rejected 
each one. 

“ I don’t trust many people — that’s a fact, Miss Janet. 
You see now why I picked on you, out of the women I 
have known. For this job now, who could I get to be 
on hand at the minute in exactly the right spot, take her 
safely and secretly out of the city and down into Jersey 
(I’ve looked up the route), meeting you somewhere half- 
way, say at Perth Amboy? (You can stay here until 
Thursday in order to do that, can’t you?) It must be 
a fellow that can handle a car and be able to handle any 
situation that might arise. He must be as trustworthy 
as — as you, Miss Janet. Of course no such rare bird is 
waiting to be caught.” 

“ Mr. Alan, I know that man.” 

“ What!” 

“ Yes, the very one you have described if I understood 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 41 

right. He is not in this city now. When must you leave 
here? ” 

“ I must go this afternoon.” 

“ Then you won’t be able to see him, but I can. He is 
coming up to town to-morrow. A young man who knows 
everything about automobiles. I think he could make 
one. He is quick and has good judgment and for 
character, I’d trust him as I would have trusted my own 
brother.” 

“ Who is he?” 

“ His name is Dan Smith.” 

“ Where is he now ? ” 

“ Down at Blue Heron.” 

“ What credentials can he give ? ” 

Miss Janet was unusually positive. “ You can accept 
this young man’s services on my word alone. I promise 
that he will be all that you desire.” 

Mr. Rand looked sharply at his old friend. “ You’re 
willing to assume so much ? That is very high praise for 
your candidate.” 

“ He is worthy of it,” said Miss Janet. 

“ Then I agree,” said Mr. Alan. 

They had finished lunch and now withdrew to a corner 
of one of the reception rooms. 

Their talk seemed to be temporarily at a standstill. 
Mr. Rand said there was no hurry; he would not leave 
now until 5.50. Miss Janet began to notice the splendors 
of the walls and furniture nearby. 

“ These marble pillars and these chandeliers remind 
me of the capitol at Trenton,” she whispered. 

She thought it must be a little like Venice too. “ I’ve 
seen pictures where they had those rich scenes painted on 


42 


BLUE HERON COVE 


the furniture. Window hangings shirred like this look 
very elegant. Are they draped that way where your 
little daughter lives? You see I am studying how I can 
make the south chamber homelike for her.” And then, 
still gazing round, she said : 

“ I hope you won’t mind having an upstairs room 
yourself.” 

“Beg pardon?” said Mr. Alan, wakened from his 
moody thoughts. 

“ I was saying I would have to put you in an upstairs 
room.” 

“ Put me ? How do you mean ? ” 

“ Why, when you come down to Blue Heron. You’ll 
be there next Sunday, I suppose.” 

“No, I have an engagement for the day. Thank you, 
Miss Janet, but you mustn’t expect me down at Blue 
Heron. This matter and my own business affairs will 
keep me occupied. And you know you’re pretty hard to 
reach for week-ends. I spend nearly all my Sundays up 
in Westchester County playing golf.” 

He said this carelessly, not seeing the expressions that 
chased each other across Miss Janet’s face. She thought 
there must be some mistake, but Mr. Alan sat there 
easily, holding his hat on his crossed knees and staring 
straight ahead as if the subject were at an end. 

She put her finger to her lips and little dismayed 
wrinkles came around the bridge of her nose. 

“ Wh-wh-why, Mr. Alan, I don’t understand at all. 
I don’t see what you mean. You said they wouldn’t give 

her up But now after all this trouble and risk 

Why, what is it for if you don’t ever see the dear child 
at all?” 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


43 


“ That has nothing to do with what I’m trying to make 
right,” said Mr. Alan frowning. 

“ But the dear little girl, what will she think ? ” 

This question touched his nerves. 

“ Good heavens, Miss Janet, haven’t I made things 
clear enough! The child cares nothing about me — 
hasn’t any more interest in me than in the merest 
stranger. Why should I expect it? I gave her up, as 
I explained, and Katherine has made just what she 
wanted of her.” He threw down his hat and made a 
tormented gesture with his head. “ Limousine, massage, 
Frauleins! Why, actually, I’ve been there when they’ve 
brought word, ‘ Miss Stephanie wishes to be excused, she 
is being manicured ’ ! Over and over I’ve tried to make 
friends with her, get her out alone with me, but it’s no 
use — she isn’t for it. She’s like a wooden image when 
I’m there — and always in such a hurry to take the Frau- 
lein woman’s hand and get out of the room. Why, Miss 
Janet, letters come from her in the summer written in 
German and copied out of an exercise book almost word 
for word ! ” 

Whirling round to face his old friend with this um- 
brage he saw that tears puckered her eyes. With a mut- 
tered exclamation he flung himself back in his chair, then 
made an excuse to leave the room. 

When he returned it was with telegraph blanks, time- 
tables, and a Blue Book in his hands. He proceeded to 
write down directions for Miss Janet’s friend, Mr. Dan 
Smith; for Miss Janet herself, to cover every situation; 
finally he made out a check payable to the order of Janet 
Price. 

Miss Janet had lost her zest. She was tired and dis- 


44 


BLUE HERON COVE 


composed and had little to say, but the figures on the 
check made her gasp a protest. 

“ I made it enough to cover the extra expense this 
will put you to. You see,” he hesitated. “ Stephanie 
has been brought up luxuriously. I wouldn’t wish to 
have her suffer hardships or too much change. You will 
give her a good room, I know. She will need a bath- 
room adjoining it. She’ll have to have some one to wait 
on her and you will require extra help in your house- 
keeping. In fact I want you to have everything made 
easy for you to look after the child. Do you under- 
stand ? ” 

“ We have a nice bathroom now,” faltered Miss Janet. 

“ Then there’s the matter of lessons. She ought to 
have a governess — I suppose a German, as she can hardly 
speak her mother tongue. Personally I hate the idea. 
But I don’t want to interfere too radically. I don’t know 
much about little girls. Well, we can write these things 
later.” He stood up. “ It’s getting toward train time. 
I’ll take you first wherever you wish to go.” 

Miss Janet could hardly make up her mind about any- 
thing, she was so tired and collapsed. 

“ I think I could compose my mind best at Wana- 
maker’s, in the basement where the bargains are.” 

To Wanamaker’s Mr. Rand took her but detained her 
in the cab to go over all the plans again. 

“ I shall wire you when they start and later write 
fully anything you wish to know. And I can run down 
to Blue Heron if you really need me. And Miss Janet, 
I’ve been trying to say it all afternoon — only I can’t, I 
owe you so much. Do you remember how I used to call 
you Aunt Janet? You didn’t mind, did you? I was 


A MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA 


45 


only sixteen and the old house over the store at Blue 
Heron was home to me. All that kindness, and this, 
make too big a score. I can’t repay — or thank you.” 

“ No, no, Mr. Alan, please stop. It is so wonderful 
to have you trust your little girl to me. Just think, she 
will be my special care! I don’t understand all you’ve 
told me. Some of it seems like a bad dream, and I 
have a feeling, one of my strong feelings, that you must 
be in some way mistaken about the child’s regard. I 
don’t know. I’m rather upset. It’s been a great deal in 
one day, the ride and the hotel and seeing you. But you 
can be sure I will attend to everything. There’s only 
one question more I’d like to ask.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ You say the dear child will have to go by some other 
name than her own in Blue Heron ? ” 

“ Yes, I think it will be better while she’s there. By 
Fall I suppose everything will be arranged so I can put 
her in some school. But just at first there’s danger of 
the newspapers getting hold of this, or of some other 
unpleasantness. You can manage it, can’t you? ” 

“ Oh, yes, I shall enjoy that ! Let me see — there are 
the queens of history, Semiramis and Zenobia, and there 
are Faith, Hope, and Charity, and Vivian and Aurora, 
and surnames like Beaufort and Somerset.” 

Mr. Rand laughed and held up his hand in protest. 

“ But that is not what I wished to ask, Mr. Alan. It’s 
about her real name. I don’t think I ever heard that 
name. Would you please write it down for me? ” 

He tore a leaf from a note-book and wrote, 

“ Stephanie Rand.” 

She studied it and glanced up at him searchingly. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


46 

“ Stephanie ? It’s a pretty name. Has she heard all 
about the weeks and months you spent at Blue Heron 
long ago ? ” 

“ She never heard of Blue Heron in her life.” 

“ What, not about our house or your hut on the point 
or the time you were frozen in and lived two weeks on 
wild oysters?” 

“ No.” 

“ But — but I’m sure she would like those stories.” 

“ Once for all, Miss Janet, don’t you understand that 
I never have a chance to say ay, yes, or no to her. I’m 
just a stupid stranger that comes to call. ‘ When daddy 
was a boy ? ’ Why it would bore her to death ! ” laughed 
Mr. Rand bitterly. 


CHAPTER V 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 

By Tuesday morning many persons at the Juilliard had 
the same delusion : — that Miss Stephanie Rand was going 
abroad with her aunt. Tante herself thought so, also 
Fraulein, Hannchen, the hotel porter, the elevator men, 
and a young man in a striped apron who had come to 
pack the piano, books, and bric-a-brac. 

All seemed to take it for granted. Of course they 
knew nothing about her standing up on a brocaded chair 
and telephoning last night. She almost wished they did. 
It is hard to have faith in a secret if you are the only 
person aware of it and are a child, at that, against grown- 
ups. Besides, any small arrangements she had ever made 
that differed from Tante’s arrangements had ended in a 
fizzle. 

What then were her surprise and pleasure to find that 
one other person understood the real facts of the case! 
She didn't know this until noon, but the first hint came 
at breakfast. 

It had been a solemn meal. Fraulein was there with 
her hat on, as she and her trunk were to go away di- 
rectly. They sat in pained silence until Gaston broke 
it up. 

Out of the portable hot cupboard from which he served 
their meals he brought with a flourish Fraulein’s favorite 
dish, a certain kind of sausage. 

47 


BLUE HERON COVE 


48 

“ Ach!” cried Fraulein, pulling out her handkerchief, 
" Die schone Wurst! ” 

After she had wiped both eyes she fell to on the 
sausage with relish. And while she was thus engaged 
Gaston suddenly bent close to Stephanie’s ear and 
whispered : 

“ Come early to your lunch. I have one fine secret 
for you then.” 

Fraulein took her departure and the morning passed 
without lessons. Stephanie was to eat her lunch alone so 
she was waiting when Gaston came to lay the cloth. She 
had almost forgotten his secret, being on tiptoe about 
the afternoon. 

“ Please, Gaston,” she began in English. “ Went you 
ever once on Coney ? ” 

“ Mademoiselle would signify Coney Island? But 
assurement. Often in the summer months.” 

“ At what hour of the afternoon must one set out to 
reach to there? ” 

“ It is in the evening ever that I go.” 

“ But Gaston, answer this, at what hour are children 
from public schools out ? ” 

“ A thousand pardons for my ignorance but I am a 
bachelor, Mademoiselle.” 

“ Then Gaston, answer this ” 

“ Mademoiselle Stephanie,” interrupted Gaston, “ at- 
tend to me” With his finger on his lips he stood for a 
moment listening, then went to the door into the hall and 
closed it carefully. 

“ You hear me this morning when I mention a 
secret? ” 

“ Yes, Gaston.” 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 


49 

“ It is this : — Mademoiselle takes this afternoon the 
usual nap ? ” 

Stephanie’s lips set. “ Hannchen has said I must 
sleep. While the books make such disorder here we 
shall dine downstairs and so the nap first. But I cannot 
sleep. I will not. Only listen, Gaston ” 

“ Attend to me.” He looked steadily at her and now 
spoke very earnestly. “ Mademoiselle shall repose as 
usual. Especially between three and four you shall re- 
main in your room, whatever happens. If Hannchen 
comes to rouse you say that you are still fatigued 
and would rest a little longer. Remain thus till 
four. At that hour certain ones will come for 
you.” 

Stephanie sat up straight and pressed her hands to- 
gether. 

'‘Gaston! You know it then? You know of Sadie 
and mein Herr Vater?” 

“ Yes, yes. It is your father’s action but that is the 
secret and you must never reveal. Not a word! Ah, 
Mademoiselle, you would not make distress for poor 
Gaston by telling this ? ” 

“ No, surely. I understand. It is the same secret, 
itself, I am knowing all the time. It is pleasant you too 
know, Gaston. I do all as you have said. Till 
four no one shall dress me. Or shall I dress 
myself, Gaston? I can dress myself alone a 
very little.” 

“ No, Mademoiselle. It is to wait. Merely wait. 
And whatever happens, not a word of this talk. You 
surely comprehend ? ” 

“ Indeed, Gaston, yes.” 


50 


BLUE HERON COVE 


At half-past two, therefore, Stephanie lay upon the 
couch which stood at the foot of her bed, and Hannchen 
spread a down quilt over her. 

“ You shall stay quiet till I come for you. It may 
be an hour.” 

“ Yes, Hannchen.” 

“ Mind, no pattering around the room, pulling out 
drawers or opening the door. Last night I find it shut 
after I have left it open.” 

“ Yes, Hannchen.” 

“ A naughty miss shall never dine downstairs with the 
fine ladies and gentlemen.” 

“ Yes, Hannchen.” 

Stephanie lay upon her back, coverlet under chin, eyes 
and lips tightly closed. Hannchen wondered a little and 
thought to herself as she went out, 

“ The miss is surely about to have some illness, she is 
so ready to go to bed lately.” 

Stephanie’s clothes for dinner were laid out on a stand; 
— a white cloth frock, white stockings and buttoned 
shoes, petticoat, and ribbon. Looking between the brass 
bars of her bed she could see these, and on the other side, 
in a wardrobe trunk, which stood open, an elaborate new 
coat of white ribbed silk with pearl buttons and a braided 
belt. 

“ What ought one to wear to Coney Island ? ” she 
whispered to herself. “ Sadie would like to see that 
coat.” 

From the school-room beyond her bath sounded 
crackling of papers, intermittent hammering, and voices. 
All the large* and small boxes had now been brought to- 
gether there for the hired packer to fill up. Hannchen’s 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 


5i 

footsteps went along the hall as she brought articles 
from madame’s rooms to be packed. 

Stephanie lay still with her head turned so that she 
could watch a little clock on her bedstand. 

At three Hannchen could be heard telephoning for the 
limousine. At quarter past Tante herself was giving 
some directions just outside the room. As soon as the 
door into the hotel corridor closed behind her the voices 
in the other room grew more cordial and hilarious. 
Hannchen and the packing man were making friends. 

Now the ordinary afternoon sounds became distinct; 
— the frequent slide and click of elevator doors, the throb 
of machinery in some subcellar, automobiles in the street, 
elevated trains, and the mixed roar of the great city. 
Also there was the singing of a strong wind around the 
building. 

It was half-past three. 

“ He could come any moment now.” 

Stephanie lay on her side and resolved not to take her 
eyes from the hands of the small ivory clock again. 

After a little her lids grew so tired that she closed 
them. Perhaps she dozed. For, without hearing the 
door open, she was aware suddenly that some one was 
standing in the room. 

She popped upright from the pillows. “ He is come ! 
He is come ! ” 

But it was only the red-haired chambermaid, Leona, 
with towels on her arm. 

“ Ach,” said Stephanie, disappointed. “ I did think 
something had happen ” 

“ Sh ! ” said the maid. She tossed the towels on a 
chair and came close to Stephanie. “ Listen, Dearie, 


52 


BLUE HERON COVE 


they’re waiting for you with an automobile in the street. 
Can you dress as still as mice and come with me ? And 
not let Hannchen hear a sound ? Because it’s a secret — 
see? We’ll just walk out together and never bother no 
one. That’s the girl. Now where’s your clothes, that 
green frock and the fur coat? Whisper, Dearie. We 
must be awful quiet.” 

But the green frock was nowhere to be found. 

“ Hannchen must take her out to brush.” She pointed 
to the white things on the stand. “ I could wear those.” 

“ Well, well ! All right. Only hurry.” 

The tap-tap of a hammer followed by gay exclama- 
tions, singing, and laughter, came from two rooms away. 
It was evident that Tante was still out and that Hannchen 
and her new friend were having a good time. 

“Lively, ain’t they? Well, keep it up, you in there, 
till we get good and gone. There, your shoes are but- 
toned. Now, Dearie, where’s your heavy coat ? ” 

“ That fur coat ? He stays always in the clothes-press 
from the hall.” 

“Bother!” 

By this time Leona had a red face and was breathing 
quick. “ Well, let’s hunt for something else.” 

She pulled at things in the closet, opened and shut 
drawers. But the heavy wraps were none of them kept 
here. 

Stephanie tip-toed over and lifted from its hanger the 
new white silk coat. 

“ Please, I could wear this.” 

A second later it was on her and a white felt hat with 
a bird’s breast against its side. 

Thus arrayed she now stood by the door holding fast 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 


53 


to Leona, who had her other hand upon the knob. The 
maid glanced back around the room. 

“ It seems awful to leave all this behind. Listen, 
Dearie, ain’t there some little thing, something that you 
kind of specially like, that you want to take along? ” 

“ Truly! It is good that you remind me. Please 
excuse the mattress, Leona. I find another place for it 
next time.” She left Leona to burrow in her bed till she 
found the small note-book. 

“ A journal,” she said, holding it up. “ All from 
English wroted. I exhibit this to mein Herr Vater 
and he learn what attention I give, off the English 
language.” 

“ Land ! What’s she talking about ? I meant your 
gold watch, Dearie, or a bracelet, or something handsome 
from that dressing-stand.” 

“ Such things ? Well, those I don’t care, anyway. 
They could wait till we are from Coney Island come, 
yes ? ” 

“ I don’t know if you’ll ever get ’em. Well now, how 
quiet can you step across the hall ? ” 

A few seconds and it was done. They stood in the 
public corridor outside the door marked 7 A. 

Instead of walking toward the elevators they 
turned to one side and went down some wind- 
ing metal stairs. 

On the floor below they stepped around a corner and 
there, to her surprise, Gaston stood waiting. He said 
nothing but handed Leona a black coat and hat, then 
stooped and touched Stephanie’s dark curls. 

“ Best luck to you, Mademoiselle.” 

When she looked again he was no longer there, but 


BLUE HERON COVE 


54 

she hardly thought of that, she was so struck with 
Leona’s appearance. 

“ So ! You look now as Hannchen in the black hat.” 

“ As near like her as I could fix myself,” declared 
Leona. 

They went down more iron stairs, always on their tip- 
toes. And down and down and down, till Stephanie’s 
ankles ached and she was dizzy from turning always to 
the right. 

For the twentieth time Leona said, “ Sh ! ” And now 
she whispered, “ This is the last flight.” 

The freckles stood out queerly on her cheeks and her 
hands shook as she straightened her own hat, then gave 
a final pat and pull to the white hat and coat. 

“ They’ll sure think you’re going out to a party.” 

“ It is some kind of party. Yes? ” Stephanie whis- 
pered, looking up at Leona with a happy little laugh. 
The minute they came out of a small passage into the 
lobby she began looking for Herr Vater. 

But he was not there. 

Nowhere in the entrance hall or the rooms opening 
from it as far as she could see, certainly not sitting in 
one of those large carved chairs as she had suggested by 
telephone. Leona walked straight on. 

No one spoke to them as they passed out. The serious 
young man had some one talking to him at the desk. 
The doorman looked as supercilious as usual. 

“ Waiting with an automobile in the street.” Why, 
yes, that was what Leona said upstairs. Well, here were 
several cars drawn up in front of the Juilliard. Which 
one would it be ? 

Leona did not even glance at them. She turned her 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 


55 


companion sharply to the left and started at a fast walk 
down the block. A strong wind came buffeting at their 
backs. It was a dusty, grim March afternoon. 

“ Where are they ? ” 

But Leona was in too much of a hurry to reply. Past 
the house with window-boxes full of pansies, past the 
front door flanked with little trees in tubs, the two 
doctors’ houses, the For-Sale house, the brown houses 
with high steps. They reached the brick buildings and 
came out on the noisy avenue which Stephanie had never 
crossed on foot. 

She looked in every direction. There were a great 
many people but neither of the two she was 
expecting. 

“ Is it to find Sadie we go here? ” 

“ Quick ! we got to cross,” Leona said. 

There were elevated trains overhead, and screeching 
trolleys passing in the covered street. They dodged 
great horses’ heads only to find themselves in the way of 
automobiles. But they reached the other sidewalk and 
Leona clasped her side and drew a long breath. 

“What you ask me back there, Dearie? Sadie? I 
don’t know what you mean. But thank goodness, the 
young man’s there all right, waiting where they said 
he’d be.” 

Drawn up at the curb in front of them, on the cross 
street, stood a rather shabby, covered car. A man with 
big shoulders was squatting down beside the front wheel. 
He glanced and saw them, and slowly began to straighten 
up, as they drew near, unfolding into the tallest person 
Stephanie had ever seen. She was by his knees. Only 
by tipping her head back as far as it would go could 


BLUE HERON COVE 


56 

she see his head. He beamed down through shell- 
rimmed glasses which rode upon a big nose and said: 

“ Well, you got here all right, I see.” 

Leona said, “ You’re Mr. ” 

“ Dan Smith.” 

“ I thought so. There’s the right number on the car. 
Just for a minute as we came across I couldn’t make you 
out anywhere and I thought Mr. Boals had told me 
wrong, or something. If anything had went wrong — 
my stars ! This is the little girl. I hope she won’t have 
to go far without more wraps. She’ll take cold in these 
doll clothes. I couldn’t find anything else to put on her.” 

“ That chap, Boals, said his governor’d meet us some- 
where.” 

“ Well, I should hope so. She’s a sweet little kid, 
worth more attention than she’s ever got. Old-fashioned 
as the mischief and talks the funniest dope. Well, take 
good care of her. I’ve done my part. Dearie, kiss 
Leona now.” 

Stephanie hardly knew when she said good-by to 
Leona. She was completely bewildered by her first 
glance into the car, which showed her it was empty. 

Then she was inside, with the curtains fastened, and 
they were whirring through unknown streets. In front 
the chauffeur’s massive shoulders blocked the view. Dust 
blew in her eyes. The car swung around corners, bumped 
over car-tracks, joggled across a stretch of cobblestones, 
slowed up, stopped. Through the smudgy side panes she 
saw a board fence on one side, a cobbled square full of 
vehicles and hurrying people. The chauffeur stepped out 
and toward the front she could see, between buildings, the 
river and its farther shore. 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 


57 

The river was gray, the sky was gray and stormy, but 
suddenly the sun seemed to shine out over everything. 
Close at hand a voice was speaking that Stephanie knew. 

“ Where’s this car from ? ” 

“Boulevard Garage, Eighth Avenue.” 

“ Is your name Dan Smith ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. It’s all right. The little girl’s inside. 
Have you been waiting long ? ” 

“ No, just came. You’re ahead of time. A boat’s 
just in but you’ll have to wait. I must have a chance to 
talk with her, and you too, before you start.” 

At this Stephanie managed to unfasten the curtain and 
slip out. 

She saw her father standing there beside the car. He 
lifted his hat and she made a curtsy — a tall man in a fur- 
lined coat and a little girl in dressy white. 

The boarding hid some place where there was building 
going on. Over beyond was the West Shore ferry en- 
trance with streams of people and trucks and motors 
passing in and out. Trolleys clanged, wheels clattered, 
the wind whipped at everything. 

They both had to shout. 

“ You got away all right? ” 

“ Yes, mein Herr Vater, and it is good you get here 
too. Myself, I fear we miss you and spoil our whole 
enjoyment. Is that Coney?” She nodded her head 
toward the west side of the Hudson. “ I have seen that 
before but never know it is the Island of Coney. One 
goes very close — not ? — to see those camel and slides and 
peanuts and band playing and persons which visit the 
moon and — much more of which Sadie has describe for 
me ? It is unfortunate we lost Sadie. It is perhaps the 


58 BLUE HERON COVE 

school, which keeps her late. School Number 179 it is 
which she — how you say? — frequents. Sadie frequents 
School Number 179 and I don’t know when it is out, and 
Gaston, while he is a bachelor, don’t know. Tante don t 
guess Sadie is invited even. Tante could never like such 
coats as Sadie’s. It is an ugly coat but it happens, may- 
be, that Mr. Wienerwurst must buy such ugly coats, 
while he has of children a great assortment, and of 

money ” finding herself involved in a long sentence 

and not knowing how to finish it, she signified Mr. 
Wienerwurst’s lack of money by a shrug and an out- 
flung hand. “ Delicatessen is surely not a rich business, 
mein Herr Vater f What you think?” 

“ I don’t understand,” said Mr. Rand, bending from 
his tall height. 

“ Please, I speak of delicatessen, the business of the 
father of Sadie.” It was hard to speak English excel- 
lently well above the noise and confusion. 

“ Sadie ? Is that your nurse ? ” 

“ Aber no, mein Vater. I speak of Sadie Wiener- 
wurst, a girl which I mention last night, all about her. 
We meet in Central Park and it is then I say 4 Come 
round Tuesday afternoon, and she ask shall you take us 
anywhere and I promise Coney Island. It is a custom 
from Mr. Wienerwurst, as I have said by telephone.” 

Alan Rand looked down at the small figure in front of 
him in complete astonishment. He had scarcely heard 
her speak two connected sentences before and couldn’t 
understand her now, but was amazed at the flow of 
language. 

“A telephone message? Did you telephone to me?” 

“ Yes, mein Vater. I stand upon a chair. Was it bad 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 59 

to do? I meant nothing bad. I merely wish to speak 
of Sadie and Coney Island and that Dresden school. The 
lady say ‘ Yes, you could send a message/ Was it — how 
you say — annoyance ? ” 

“ No, but the message? I didn’t get it.” 

She looked up at him dazedly. “Didn’t get? But 

why then have you come? Has Tante sent Must 

I go back ? ” She glanced toward the ferry house in 
bewilderment. “ But it is here we go on Coney Island? 
Yes?” 

“ Coney Island ! Not a bit of it. What put that into 
your head ? Come, this wind’s too cold to stand in. Get 
inside the car and I’ll explain things as quickly as I can.” 

As he seated himself by her in the car he pulled out 
his watch and exclaimed, “ I ought to be back there at 
the Juilliard now! ” 

Stephanie peered up into his face. 

“ Wizout me, you would not go back there ? ” 

“ Yes, without you, because you are to go on, you see.” 
“ Aber no!” she cried, clutching his arm, “take me 
back wiz you. It is better I go wiz you. You can better 
explain and I have a fraid to go alone. Together we go 
back to the Juilliard, Herr Vater ” 

“ Why do you always call me that ? Is it what the 
German woman teaches you ? ” He looked at her mood- 
ily. “ I see you’re anxious to go back and that’s natural 
under the circumstances. It’s going to be hard for you, 
leaving your aunt and everything you’ve been accustomed 
to and going into a strange world. I’m sorry. I wish 
it didn’t have to be. But we’re in for it now. You 
must make the best of it. Be a brave girl and do exactly 
as I tell you for I have thought only of your best good, 


6o 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Stephanie. I am your father, you know, and however 
hard it may be to leave your aunt and all the rest, you 
must trust me when I say it’s best to follow my plans 
now. Do you think you can do that? Be a brave girl 
and listen quietly and do just what I tell you without 
making any fuss ? Can you ? ” 

Stephanie folded her hands in her lap and sat up 
straight with her eyes upon his face. 

“ Yes, Herr Vater 

It certainly was necessary to listen hard for she had 
not understood a thing so far. She didn’t want to go 
back alone. Hannchen must have found out by this time 
about the white coat and would be furious. She would 
be cross too at Leona for taking her out alone and would 
tell Tante. Why had Leona done it and how came she 
herself here on a strange corner in a strange automobile, 
with her father on the seat beside her, if Coney Island 
had no connection with the matter? Her thoughts 
seemed to whirl. She forgot all the things she had been 
going to tell Herr Vater when they met. 

The giant chauffeur occasionally passed where they 
could see him as he stepped around the front of the 
car, doing something to it with tools. All sorts of 
whistles and bells sounded and many people streamed in 
and out of the ferry entrance. The voice beside her 
talked on and on. 

It was all about “ Blue Heron ” and “ Miss Janet.” 
Stephanie knew what Herren (gentlemen) were and blue 
ones must be policemen, but a Miss Janet seemed to be 
something different. Miss Janet would meet her some- 
where, would tell her all she wanted to know, get any- 
thing she needed, take the place of all the persons who 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 


61 


usually cared for her. Gradually it dawned that he was 
handing her over to this stranger, and the thought made 
her deaf to all he said in Miss Janet’s praise. 

He now snapped open his watch again and said that 
as soon as he had talked with “that young man” he 
must hurry back to the Juilliard and face the music. 
(What music? Stephanie wondered, remembering that 
the piano had been sent away.) 

“ Is there any question you would like to ask me 
first?” 

There were so many that they could not make room 
for each other to squeeze out. 

“Is Miss Janet very wide?” she said at last. (She 
meant far , being always confused by the German word 
weit. This place might be as far away as Dresden 
itself. ) 

“ No, she is decidedly slim,” said Mr. Rand laughing. 
No wonder they did not understand each other! 

“ There’s one thing will seem very strange to you, but 
I think it is best. You are to go by another name down 
there. You will not be called Stephanie Rand but must 
answer to some other name which Miss Janet will help 
you choose. She will explain and make you understand 
better than I can. And now I must get out and speak 
with your chauffeur.” 

They stood talking near the rear wheels and the pas- 
senger watched them but could hear little of what they 
said. She saw her father hold out something to the 
chauffeur. 

“ No, no,” said that young man raising his voice and 
getting red in the face. “ I don’t want money. I’m 
doing this to please a woman — a woman that’s been kind 


62 


BLUE HERON COVE 


to me. Eve given you my word to take that little girl 
safely down to Miss Janet in Perth Amboy and both of 
'em the rest of the way. If you’ve any doubt about any- 
thing, get somebody else, that’s all.” 

Mr. Rand looked him in the eyes a moment, then his 
own face cleared and he held out his hand. After a 
second’s hesitation the other shook it frankly. 

They talked some minutes longer, sometimes motion^ 
ing towards the watching passenger and sometimes bend- 
ing together over a book with maps in it. Then once 
more Stephanie’s father was on the seat beside her. 

He looked her over critically. “ Who dressed you in 
those clothes ? ” 

She hung her head. “ Please, Leona. But myself 
I think they look nice for Coney Island.” 

“ Coney Island again!” he laughed. “ You’ve never 
really been to Coney, have you?” 

“ Never once, mein V at er” 

“ Did you want to go ? ” 

“ Yes, mein V at er ” 

“Well, perhaps some day we’ll try it together. But 
you’re going some little distance farther now and it 
promises to be a cold, stormy trip. Miss Janet Price will 
meet you in an hour and she’ll be stocked up with things 

to make you comfortable. But till then Here, I 

know what we can do. Stand up.” 

He stripped off his coat. It was a handsome garment 
of black cloth with fur collar and a thick fur lining. But 
the sleeves hung empty, way below Stephanie’s hands, 
folds lay piled on her feet, and there was no way to 
fasten it around her. 

Holding it together with one hand he glanced here and 


LEONA GOES FOR A WALK 63 

there, lifted up the front seat and discovered there a piece 
of rope. 

“ That’s more like ! ” 

He wound the rope round and round her. Then she 
was so trussed up that he had to lift her into the seat 
where he crossed the coat over her feet and tucked a rug 
across her knees. 

“ Now you’re fixed against the cold. Bet they never 
dressed you up like this at the Juilliard.” He laughed 
gaily at her. She seemed to belong to him at that 
moment more than she ever had before. As for 
Stephanie, this young father in his dark suit with the big 
coat removed and his hat off seemed charming, debonair, 
and hard to be parted from so soon. 

“ I must be off. Now is there anything at all you want 
before I go? ” 

Stephanie pondered. Then she struggled to get her 
right hand free. The fingers of her left hand had never 
let go the little black book, her journal, which she had 
forgotten about but held unconsciously. He rolled back 
the deep cuff for her. Then she was overcome by a fit 
of shyness. 

“ What is it ? What did you want to do ? ” 

“ It is nothings. Only long time I wish to stroke one 
small section of your hairs.” 

She reached up and gave his head one thistle-down 
touch with her gloved fingers. 

He looked at her curiously, not understanding, won- 
dering what was in her mind. He almost wished he 
could have planned to take her the whole way himself. 


CHAPTER VI 


DOWN THROUGH JERSEY 

Through the pine forests of eastern New Jersey an 
automobile raced at midnight. The trees, like Indian 
scouts, silent, gray, peering, stood at the dark roadside to 
see it pass and were caught there by the big headlights of 
the car. They, and a piece of yellow state-road shooting 
away beneath the wheels, were all that could be seen by 
those that sped southward this black night. 

Plenty of noise there was. Above the swish and 
rumble of heavy wheels on gravel track sounded a north- 
east wind howling in the pine-tops. 

The last lights had been two red eyes, winking at some 
lumber piles and a shed, near railroad tracks. The last 
human being had waved from an engine that seemed to 
spring on them out of the darkness, turning just in time 
to rumble away, drawing after it endless big square 
shapes that shouted “ Clappity-clap, clappity-clap ! ” as 
they went by. The last place where people lived, barns, 
houses, yards, had been dark and still, except for a dog 
that woke and barked. 

“ Chauffeur !” 

Three times had a small voice called, but the word was 
immediately swooped up by a great wind and carried off 
over bending pine-tops miles and miles and dropped into 
a pond back behind Lakewood somewhere. It never 
reached the driver. He sat motionless at his wheel, and 
64 


DOWN THROUGH JERSEY 


65 

the solitary passenger in the rear seat — a slim passenger 
wrapped in a fur-lined coat, but in danger every minute 
of jolting out of it — subsided into a sort of trance 
on the edge of sleep, never able to tumble into its 
soft nest. 

Long ago they had stopped at a red brick house with 
white stone window-sills and the giant chauffeur had 
brought her bread and milk. Long before that they had 
left behind them that city where they did not find Miss 
Janet. 

Certainly the giant had expected to find her there in 
a big lighted building — a hotel. He came out looking 
anxious, even alarmed. He said Miss Janet had not 
come nor any message from her. They looked here and 
there; they drove to a railway station and waited till a 
train came roaring in and all the people had stepped down 
from it. The giant was nonplussed. He stood by the 
car and thought and frowned. Then he climbed into his 
place and said : 

“ Nothing for it but to go ahead without her.” 

And this was long, long after they left New York 
streets, the ferry boat and the cobblestone square out of 
which Herr Vater had turned a corner and vanished from 
her sight. 

On and on and on through villages and towns with 
long rows of signs along the road outside of them. 
“ Stop Overnight at Bartlett Inn,” “ Stop at Motor Inn,” 
41 Polarine Oils and Greases,” “ Call at Kenwood Gar- 
age.” But they stopped nowhere. 

Then the woods began, and underneath them showed 
white sand and the road lay between yellow banks. At 
first they were a baby woods, little Christmas trees and 


66 


BLUE HERON COVE 


sometimes a house in a clear place. Then it was these 
grown-up woods, mile after mile after mile. 

How it made one’s eyes ache to watch the trees spring 
into the light and slip away. Stephanie shut them 
out for a minute and instead of trees they became 
strangely, pillows, unyielding, barky, and scratchy to her 
cheek. Or was it the big telephone book beneath her 
back? That is, her journal, which was humping itself 
around in the mattress, and Hannchen was angry; no, 
not Hannchen but a huge mysterious creature draped in 
blankets, in fact Miss Janet Price 

The car had stopped. R-r-rmp. 

“ Asleep?” 

“ No. Too much trees. Miss Janet Prices comes 
here to take my book.” 

She rubbed her eyes with one hand and felt for the 
journal with the other, realizing now that her hand was 
empty. The car was at a standstill, the chauffeur had 
turned in his seat, and she was talking nonsense. 

“ Cold?” he asked. 

“ A little.” 

“ Hungry?” 

“ A little, yet.” 

“ Wait.” 

He fumbled in his ulster pockets and produced a 
package. 

“ Got these put up at an owl wagon in Amboy thinking 
they might come in useful on the way. Egg sandwiches.” 

Stephanie caught one whiff and drew back. 

“ Please, no. I thank you. It is the onion. The 
smell is — how you say? — too numerous. I beg excuse 
from onions.” 


DOWN THROUGH JERSEY 67 

The chauffeur remained transfixed for a moment hold- 
ing the parcel in the air. Then with a peculiar “ Ha ! ” 
he leaned forward and pitched the sandwiches into the 
forest. 

“ I beg your pardon, Highness, but I’m not much used 
to the likes of you.” He felt in another pocket. “ Try 
this.” 

Again Stephanie drew back when she found he was 
holding out a bottle. 

“ I thank you. No.” 

“ You must this time. It’s milk with coffee in it. 
Swallow it right down.” 

“ From bottles drink? ” 

“ Sure. Put your lips right to the top.” 

Something in his tone made her obey. But it was a 
cold, nasty dose and some of it spilled down her neck. 

“ Next, to get warm.” 

He stepped out of the car and opened the door for her. 

“ Shake off that fur shell of yours and jump down 
here on the ground.” 

She was so stiff she could hardly stand and the wind 
took her breath away. But presently she was watching 
something that surely never happened before on that 
particular piece of state-road at 1.40 a.m. in a rising 
northeaster : — a giant giving a little girl lessons in squat- 
tag. 

“ We’ll get out here in front of the lights. Now,” he 
coaxed. “ I’m it and you must run. Just to stretch 
your legs, that’s all. Come on ! ” 

But Stephanie only clung to the front wheel and looked 
at him with startled eyes. 

“Don’t tell me you don’t know squat-tag? When I 


68 


BLUE HERON COVE 


go to touch you you must scrooch down like this. Then 
run ! Scamper ! Stretch your legs ! ” 

He saw her lips move and bent to hear the words. 

“ I prefer they shall not.” 

“ Shall not what? ” 

“ Stretch.” 

“Ha!” cried the giant. “Listen, little Highness, 
you’re stiff from this long cold trip. You’ve got to do 
something to limber up your joints, and tag is first rate 
for that. Don’t you play tag at home ? ” 

She shook her head. 

“ Time you learned then, sure thing. Now you’re it. 
Try to touch me. See? I dast you. There!” 

At last she was tempted into it. Then it was a sight 
to see the giant dodge and squat and skip, with coattails 
flying in the wind and benevolence beaming through his 
shell-rimmed glasses. A sight also the serious face of 
the small person in white imitating him. 

She ran and puffed and almost sat down in the road, 
but her expression never changed, and when he forgot 
to squat and she bumped into him with a tiny squeal, 
she repressed it instantly, murmuring, “ Please excuse.” 

“ Smooth work ! A girl that can swing in like that 
on a new game at two o’clock in the morning is going 
to make some fan. Now bundle into the big coat. So. 
And now sit down here a minute while we talk some- 
thing over.” 

He lighted a lantern and seated himself beside her on 
the running-board of the car. 

“ You see it’s like this : — I supposed my responsibili- 
ties, except just running this car down through Jersey, 
would be over when Miss Janet Price stepped in at 


DOWN THROUGH JERSEY 69 

Amboy. But Miss Janet didn’t step in and what’s hap- 
pened to the old girl I can’t think. She gets flustered 
easily but generally manages to strike bed rock when any 
one’s depending on her. Anyway some mistake was 
made and she’s not here. I figured the only thing for 
me to do was to go on and get you to Blue Heron as 
quick as possible. I’m going to make it too. There’s a 
nor’easter coming up but we’ll beat it to the Cap’n’s be- 
fore daylight. But there’s one thing we must settle on 
right now. What your father spoke about before he 
left. He said he’d told you. He said Miss Janet would 
help you choose. What handle will you go by down at 
Cap’n’s?” 

“ Handle!” 

Seeing her puckered forehead he explained again the 
curious thing she was sure she dreamed of first; — how, 
in this place where he was taking her, she would be 
Stephanie Rand no more, but another child who wasn’t 
to mention Stephanie Rand or the Hotel Juilliard or any- 
body or anything she was used to there. 

“ Miss Janet isn’t here and she won’t be at the house. 
She’s met with trouble and got side-tracked somewhere. 
So it’s up to us to settle this thing once for all. I’ve 

been milling it over for the last four hours but 

Hang it! / never named a girl. Miss Janet Price 

taught school once. But I Pshaw! Can’t you 

name yourself? ” 

She stared at him, puzzling out his words. 

“ What person would you like best to be, besides your- 
self ? ” he put it. 

Her face lit up. “ Sadie Wienerwurst ! ” she cried. 

“Sadie what? Did you make that name up?” 


70 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ No, please, a truly girl — one real girl, alive, has the 
name.” 

“ Well, I’m glad she’s alive and not in a sausage 
machine. Is she any relative of yours? ” 

“ Aber no! No relations. She is my friend. A 
smart girl and of such good family. Her Vater, Mr. 
Wienerwurst, lives by her and has ways most agreeable. 
I like to be Sadie Wienerwurst. It is a nice name? 
Yes? ” 

“Sure! If it’s the one you like, Highness, it will 
do fine for you. You’re Sadie Wienerwurst — from 
Hoboken. Now suppose I was the Cap’n and I said, 
‘ What’s your name, little girl ; and what quarter do you 
blow from ? ’ What’d you say ? ” He helped her out, 
“ ‘ Sadie Wienerwurst,’ you’d say, ‘ From Hoboken.’ 
And it’s the truth. From Hoboken we came this after- 
noon.” 

He stood up. “ And now I’m going to fix things so 
you can maybe take a little nap before we get there.” 

With leather cushions and rugs he made a place on 
the floor between the seats for her to lie on, adjusted the 
big cloak, drew it snug, covered her with another robe 
and resumed his position at the wheel. The rest of the 
journey he himself rode on bare boards. 

Just as he was ready to start he felt a slight poke. 

“Yes, Highness, aren’t you comfortable back there?” 

“ I had here a little book, a journal of my life. I feel 
after it everywhere but cannot find. When it gets lost 
I am so sad ! ” 

“ Well, we can’t have you sad, Highness. But no use 
to look to-night. To-morrow I’ll turn the car upside 
down and shake it.” 


DOWN THROUGH JERSEY 71 

Before he had time to release the clutch, he was poked 
again. 

“ Yes, Highness/’ 

“ You are a real chauffeur? Yes?” 

“ I’ve got a license.” 

“ Is it then in that place where we go the function 
of chauffeurs to play squat ? ” 

“Ha? Function?” 

“Of the chauffeurs of that place of policemen? To 
play this game wiz girls which ride wiz them ? ” 

“Function?” muttered Dan Smith. “Policemen? 
What’s she givin’ us?” He shook his head. “Why? 
Do you like squat-tag, Highness? ” 

“ A ch, yes!” 

“ Well then, by hump ! I’ll see that the chauffeurs 
where we’re going make it their what-you-call-’m. Now 
lie down and go to sleep, well as the roads and this jitney 
will let you.” 

He added to himself, “ I’ll be glad when the long bridge 
and Bog Island Bonnet are behind us.” 

As they spun away into the darkness he gave vent to 
one or two grim chuckles: 

“ Sadie Wienerwurst” 

Stephanie sank into a sound sleep in her warm nest. 

The giant was a reassuring person. One felt one 
could rely on him. The heavy rocking and the wind 
served to lull her now. She pressed her nose into the 
fur coat and sniffed at a suggestion of the heavenly- 
beautiful smell always associated with Herr Voter's pres- 
ence. It sent her off to pleasant dreams. 

Two hours must have passed but she thought it was 
a minute. Suddenly, with a great jolt, she was wakened, 


BLUE HERON COVE 


72 

and all sorts of uncomfortable things were happening at 
once. 

Her bed was full of icy water and as she struggled 
out of it everything she touched felt soaked, and some- 
thing else, fine and sharp, stung her face. A great 
thundering everywhere. Overhead a torn, gray sky, just 
visible. Was it morning then? 

A lantern flashed across her face and she heard her 
new friend shout to persons unseen. 

“ Some gale, Cap’n Price ! I had to make that run 
across the bridge close-hauled, so it rained right in. 
Tide’s over the road some places. Bill Pharo, where’s 
Miss Janet? ” 

“ Somewhere’s up the state, I reckon. Tellegraft 
came for Eller ’bout eleven o’clock. Said Miss Price 
requested Mrs. Pharo sit up fer autymobile. She could 
a got one more word in and told Eller what kep’ her and 
who you was bringin’ and what to do before you got 
here. But I expect Janet didn’t make it up herself. 
She don’t like to telegraft. What ails her anyway? 
Cap’n don’t understand. Eller’s had three letters off’t 
her in two days, ’bout fixin’ up the house. Yes, the tide’s 
up some. Surf’s washed out the upper end of Mon- 
tague. They say the railroad bridge may go.” 

“ If it does the long bridge goes with it. That’s why 
I’m in a hurry. Me for the back trail before the road’s 
cut off.” 

“ What ! Not going back to-night ! ” 

“ Sure am.” 

“ How you goin’ ? ” 

“ In this jitney. She’s a good traveler. The boss 
expects me in town to-morrow at ten-thirty. He’s got a 


DOWN THROUGH JERSEY 73 

new bunch of gravel-mixers to send down. By the way, 
does Boxer know I was expected? I sent word not to 
tell him. ,, 

“ No, we didn’t know ourselves that ’twas an auto 
druv by you ” 

“ That’s good. He’d only worry. You say Mrs. 
Bill’s in there? This child’s wet and cold and tired to 
death.” 

“ What name did y’say, Dan? Name of the child?” 

“ Wienerwurst. Sadie Wienerwurst from Hoboken.” 

The top of the car had been let down to make a better 
run across the bridge. Now Stephanie’s giant freed her 
from wet rugs and raised her to his shoulder. 

Over his shoulder she caught a first impression in the 
murky dawn. Nothing in sight but sky and water and a 
few bushes whipping with the gale. Thunderous crash- 
ing sounded, out there toward the sky. 

“ Where are those blue Herren ? ” she quavered in the 
giant’s ear. " I think we better gone to Coney anyway.” 


CHAPTER VII 


SADIE WIENERWURST 

Captain Aaron Price sat by the stove in his room, 
which opened from the kitchen, and pored over a news- 
paper. It was several days old and he had read it 
through twice before, but having forgotten those times 
he was now as much concerned as ever over a fire on the 
Philadelphia docks. 

A forty-mile gale from far up on the northern Atlantic 
tore across Blue Heron Island and shook the old house 
like a rag as it went by. But this did not disturb the 
Cap’n, nor did the mighty surf pounding on the beach, 
nor the rain and sand pelting against the window panes. 
Northeast storms in March were what Cap’n Price ex- 
pected. What did bother him was Mrs. Bill Pharo in 
the kitchen getting supper. He couldn’t quite make out 
why she was there instead of his daughter, though every- 
thing had been several times explained. 

He was annoyed too by the repeated banging open of 
doors to the storm caused by a boy in an oilskin suit and 
sou’wester. 

“ Shut that door, Rawger, don’t you know better’n to 
open a door to leeward in this here gale ? There ! The 
papers on my desk are carried off and it’ll take me all 
evening to brace ’em up again.” 

“ Excuse me, Cap’n, I’m awfully sorry about the 
papers, but I came in to tell you something you really 
74 


SADIE WIENERWURST 75 

ought to know. There’s somebody upstairs in the old 
kitchen ! ” 

Mrs. Bill made signs to Roger. “ It’s that girl.” 

“ What girl?” 

“ A girl that come last night.” 

“ Came last night ! Why, the bridge is out ! ” 

“ Well, she got acrost from the Main in a auto.” Mrs. 
Pharo hurried on before Roger could ask what auto 
and who drove it. “ If you hadn’t been out sloshin’ 
round the village all day you’d a known about her. What 
you say ails her now ? ” 

“ I don’t know. She’s awfully still. I went up after 
my boots and I heard a little sort of creeping noise. 
Thought ’twas rats at first. It’s queer for a girl to keep 
so still.” 

“ Well, why don’t she get dressed and come down 
then? My instructions was to let her sleep and I done 
so, till three o’clock this afternoon. Then I went up and 
took her dress which had got dry by the kitchen stove, 
and a cup of coffee. I ast her how she felt and how she 
enjoyed her trip and how she left her folks, and I ast 
her how come she to wear them white clothes down here 
in such a storm, and I ast her if she’d know’d Miss Janet 
Price very long and whether Hoboken was a pleasant 
place to live and I ast her if her pa and ma was well. 
’N all the time she jest set up in bed with her eyes roll- 
ing round and never spoke a word. She seemed to be 
listenin’ to the surf. So I started to hand her the coffee 
and all ’f sudden she let out some kind of lingo at me 
and dove down into the bedclothes. She hauled the 
comfort up around her ears and just shuck her head and 
squeezed her eyes shut and I thought she wanted to 


BLUE HERON COVE 


76 

sleep some more, so I told her supper would be ready 
about six, and I set the coffee down and come away. 
I don’t know what to make of her, and Cap’n, course, 
don’t sense a thing, but it don’t seem natural the way she 
acts. I think myself she’s fori’n. S’pose you go up now 
and rap on the door, Rawger, and tell her supper’s on. 
Ask her if she wants something to put round her. I 
can’t leave this chowder. Besides, I hate them outside 
stairs a night like this.” 

Because this lower floor had once been Cap’n Price’s 
store and the upper floor his house, the only stairs were 
outdoors, slanting up against the south wall. There were 
verandas over them, but in a storm like this you needed 
a waterproof and hood and boots, all securely lashed, to 
go upstairs. Roger was in his oilskins. 

There was not even a creeping noise in the room now. 
Only a sound of hard breathing, as if some one worked 
laboriously at something. Roger could hear it plainly 
because it was close to the door and he had drawn near 
on tip-toe. At his loud rap it stopped. 

“ Who is there? ” asked a small voice. 

“ It’s me — that is, I’m Roger Smith, a boy that stays 
here. I came to say that supper’s nearly ready.” 

“ Supper? ” 

“ Yes, downstairs. There’s clam chowder. Don’t 
you want any? ” 

A pause. “ Please send me cocoa and a plenty toast. 
Send them upstairs on me. I eat the meals always up- 
stairs in my room. And please, where is the telephone? ” 

“ Telephone! There isn’t any except at the hotel and 
Bissell’s store.” 

“ No telephone? ” 


SADIE WIENERWURST 


77 


“ No.” 

“ No telephone in this hotel ?” 

“ Not so you’d notice it.” 

“ Ach! You please send then a chambermaid to me, 
or a housekeeper, or — or yet the thick one, which was 
here this afternoon. But she could ask fewer questions.” 

Roger stared at the doorknob. “ I don’t understand 
exactly. There’s no chambermaid here, nobody but Mrs. 
Bill, the Life Saving Station’s wife, I mean Cap’n Bill 
Pharo’s, of course. And she’s making the chowder and 
can’t leave it. Why don’t you come down? ” 

“ How shall I come down ? I haf already try. I 
find no elevator only a fire-escape. And I don’t like the 
great wind and the noise. I don’t like to go on fire- 
escapes in storms. And — I have got other troubles ” 

“ What did you say ? ” 

The voice inside trembled. “ The shoe-button. I am 
not accustomed. I tire myself much, but he remains 
unbuttoned. I have never any experience of b-b-b-but- 
tons. I like a maid quick to help.” 

Roger drew off slowly. It was a case for Mrs. Pharo 
or nobody. Besides he was afraid he would laugh. 

As he retreated the door opened and the voice which, 
though so small and plaintive, sounded as if it were used 
to giving orders, said : 

“ Boy!” 

“Hn? Oh— yes?” 

“ A pitcher ice-water you could anyway bring.” 

Roger flew down to the kitchen and almost left the 
entry door open again in his hurry to sink into the splint- 
bottom rocking-chair and gasp. 

“ You better go right up, Mrs. Pharo. Take the ele- 


BLUE HERON COVE 


78 

vator and a pitcher of ice-water and telephone for a taxi- 
cab. Who is that girl anyway? She’s Dutch! 3 * 

“ I don’t know no more’n you do. Her name’s Sadie 
Wienerwurst from Hoboken. You get Cap’n to his 
supper and in a minute I’ll step upstairs.” 

To herself Mrs. Pharo grumbled, “ Must be sump’n 
queer about the girl. Dan wants Roger not to know he 
brung her down and Janet writes three letters in one 
day ’bout the south chamber and the best sheets but don’t 
tell a word ’bout the party that’s cornin’. Thinks I, it’s 
Mis’ Piffin’ton. And there, ’twas only this girl. South 
chamber! Nobody can’t set up stoves in a nor’easter. 
Janet never had no one in March before but gunners. 
Janet’s a good neighbor. I just as lieves get meals. But 
if I tromp up and down them stairs in this gale I’ll be 
clean drug out. If I was Janet I’d build this house over, 
father or no father.” 

While she was putting on the supper and the Captain 
and Roger seated themselves at table, the door of the 
entry was heard banging, then the kitchen door flew open, 
and there on the threshold stood the new boarder. Mrs. 
Pharo jumped to shield the lamp, Roger to shut the doors. 
The Captain turned and adjusted his spectacles. All 
three stared at what the wind had tossed in amongst 
them. 

She might almost have come riding on a broomstick or 
on a clot of foam or some flying seaweed, for her big 
frightened eyes and her matted curls made her look like a 
little hobgoblin. The white cloth frock was all wrinkled 
and it had a strange, skewed appearance as though hooks 
were fastened to wrong eyes in the back. The white 
satin sash that should have looped at the side was pulled 



“Why, child, you’re all wet!” 








































I 



















































» 


















SADIE WIENERWURST 


79 


around and fastened in a hard knot. Her arms were 
bare; so were her knees; she had on the clothes that had 
been laid out to go down to dinner in at the Juilliard. 
One white boot held together by a single button at the 
top. The other gaped wide apart. 

“ Why, child, you’re all wet ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Pharo. 

“ By fire-escape I come,” she answered with a wild 
gesture. 

Her most terrible nightmare had come true. A dream 
she had had, ever so often, since as far back as she could 
remember : — that she was on the narrow iron stairs that 
zigzagged outside the hotel wall, all alone in the dark, 
going down and down. Then Hannchen would hear her 
scream and would come and say : 

“ It is something you have eaten. In the morning 
Fraulein shall give you castor oil.” 

But this had been real. She had felt her way down 
in pitchy blackness that crashed and roared. She had not 
known what was at the foot and only by chance had laid 
hold of a doorknob and found her way in here. 

And what was this? A servant’s dining-room? She 
suddenly realized that she was very hungry. 

“ Please,” she said, coming two steps into the room. 
“ Please, where is dinner served ? ” 

“ What, ma’am ? ” asked the Captain, who was nearest 
her. 

“ Where is the dining-room ? I send for a chamber- 
maid but none comes and I dress myself and climb down 
off fire-escapes. I don’t know the way here. I like some 
one direct me on the public dining-room.” 

“ This is where we eat at present, ma’am,” said Cap’n 
Price. “ In summer I allow my daughter to set tables 


8o 


BLUE HERON COVE 


for boarders in the store, but it’s a temp’ry arrangement 
— purely temp’ry — as soon as I get a full-rigged business 
launched again we’ll get rid of all such nonsense. You 
see, it’s like this ” 

“ Never mind, Cap’n,” interrupted Mrs. Pharo. 
“ ’Nuther time will do to explain that. We near about 
give you out, child. I’m afraid your clothes took some 
damage coming down them outside stairs. Set right up 
to table. Janet has ’em eat here except in the boardin’ 
season. Roger and his brother they don’t count as 
boarders. They’re like as if they lived to Blue Heron 
and you’ll have to be the same, I guess, you came so 
early. Cap’n this here is Sadie Wienerwurst, the first 
boarder of the season. Sadie, make you ’quainted with 
Cap’n Price and with Roger Smith, who went up to call 
you just now. If you’re fond of book-knowledge him 
and you ought to get on good together. Set right down 
here side of him.” 

Stephanie, with her eyes as big as saucers, took the 
offered seat between the bell-boy and the strange old man. 
But surely no bell-boy ever existed without brass buttons 
and as for her other neighbor he was a handsome old 
man with a hook nose and bright blue eyes. She won- 
dered if she should have curtsied to him. 

The table had a red cloth on it and was near enough 
to the stove for Mrs. Pharo to pour out tea and set the 
pot back on the hob without rising. 

Now whether it was their calling her a boarder, or 
her unexpected entrance, or her name, anyhow Cap’n 
Price became sadly mixed about the lady at his right. 

After pushing his glasses back securely on his nose 
and taking a long look at her he asked : 


SADIE WIENERWURST 


81 


“ What did you say your name is, ma’am ? ” 

a Steph — no — that is — Sadie Wienerwurst from Ho- 
boken.” This was said so confusedly that Cap’n Price 
put his hand up behind his ear. 

“ What say, ma’am ? ” 

“ Sadie Wienerwurst.” 

The Captain looked around as though somebody had 
been neglectful. “ Roger, I don’t know as you been 
made acquainted with this lady, Mrs. Winterwurts.” 

“ Wienerwurst,” corrected Mrs. Pharo. “ I just made 
her ’quainted with Roger.” 

“ I don’t recollect seeing you before, Mrs. Wizzle- 
hurst. Did you come down by boat or train? You 
bean’t from Mt. Holly, be you? There’s a lady from 
there been cornin’ here for quite a spell, name of Higin- 
botham. Maybe you’re some rolation of her’n?” 

“ Sakes alive, Cap’n, what notions you dew take ! Mis’ 
Higinbotham hain’t been to Janet’s in fifteen year, and 
anyway this little girl’s no relation to them. She’s from 
Hoboken.” 

“Hoboken, hey? I used to know a sight of folks 
from there when I run the Lizzie M . I used to dock her 

there. That was before I run aground o’ trouble ” 

And the Captain launched into a long account of things 
that had happened many years ago — ships, storms, his 
wife, “ Janey,” a store, trouble, enemies. All of it was 
told to Stephanie as if she were a grown-up lady, and 
he addressed her severally as Mrs. Wimmenwurst, Mrs. 
Wheezleworks, and Mrs. Weatherburst. 

Poor Stephanie didn’t know where to look. She 
glanced at the bell-boy and was surprised at the color of 
his face. It was purple, and he seemed to be choking. 


82 


BLUE HERON COVE 


At “ Weatherburst ” he rolled his eyes toward her and 
stuffed his napkin into his mouth. 

She began to wonder who she really was. She had 
been Stephanie Rand no longer ago than yesterday morn- 
ing, and now was Sadie Wienerwurst, not gay Sadie of 
Central Park, but an uncombed, unwashed, imper- 
fectly buttoned child who ate from a thick white 
plate and had her soup poured from a black pan on 
the stove. 

Could she be also one of the unknown ladies the old 
man took her for? 

However, she was very hungry and ate all the supper 
that was offered her. 

“ Now, Cap’n,” said Mrs. Pharo rising, “ you can tell 
Sadie that some other time. I got to clear up and get 
home to him. Roger, you take Sadie upstairs and make 
a light in the settin’-room and show her shells out the 
cabinet, or somethin’, till I’m done here. I got together 
some things for you, Sadie, seein’s your trunk ain’t come. 
Wrap this coat of Cap’n’s round you to go up them 
stairs.” 

Stephanie wondered where Herr Vetter's coat was. 
This one smelled queer. But there was no time to think 
about it; the boy raced upstairs s© fast that it was hard 
work to keep up with him and she didn’t propose to be 
left far behind. 

From the upper hall he ushered her into a chilly room 
and lighted a lamp on the center-table. 

“ Sit down and make yourself easy. That’s the shell 
cabinet over there if you want to look in it. My brother 
caught the shark that big tooth came from.” 

The speaker plumped himself down on a sofa. 


SADIE WIENERWURST 


83 

Stephanie took a chair on the opposite side of the room, 
still enveloped in Cap’n Price’s old pea-jacket over her 
short frock. The boy wore shell-rimmed glasses. They 
stared solemnly at each other, both bursting with ques- 
tions which they didn’t know if it would be proper to 
ask. 

“Why don’t you button up your shoes?” exclaimed 
Roger at last, unable to hold his curiosity any longer. 

“ Please, I have no buttonhook.” 

“ Can’t you do it with your fingers ? ” 

“ Please, I don’t know how wiz fingers. I have from 
buttons no experience. My maid does it for me. Where 
is one here which shall dress me and bring new clothes 
and fill the bath? I search and again search for tele- 
phone but my room has not a bell even, but only a large 
round hole very high upon the wall.” 

“ Ho ! That’s the stove-pipe hole into our room. 
Your room’s the old kitchen, you know.” 

“A kitchen?” 

“Yes. You see it’s this way: — Downstairs used to 
be a store. 4 Price’s General Store and Market,’ it says 
over the front door yet. This room’s their parlor yet, 
except when Miss Janet gets full up with boarders. Your 
room used to be the kitchen. It’s over the downstairs 
kitchen and I guess Mrs. Bill put you in there cause ’twas 
warm. Didn’t you notice all the cupboards and the 
sink ? ” 

“ Much cupboard truly. A sink I have never seen. A 
kitchen ! So ? I am almost never in any kitchen before 
and had not known this custom that persons sleep in 
them.” 

“Never in a kitchen! Whee-yew! Where do you 


BLUE HERON COVE 


84 

come from anyway? Oh, yes, you said Hoboken. 
Don’t they have any kitchens in Hoboken ? ” 

“ Please, I don’t know.” 

Roger stared harder than ever. “ Are you a for- 
eigner ? ” 

“ No, certainly ! I am American. I spik good Eng- 
lish, yes ? ” 

“ Excuse me, but you certainly don’t. You talk about 
like one of my brother’s dagos, that mix cement and tote 
gravel, you know. My brother’s away, gone up to town 
to get a new bunch of men. Wish he’d hurry back. My 
brother’s a dandy; everybody likes him. He loves a 
nor’easter. He’s been out in the surf-boat lots of times 
and only this winter helped get men in from a wreck, 
the Stephen B. Culmore. I wasn’t here then, worse luck, 
but up in town in school.” 

Stephanie was turning things over in her mind but 
didn’t know how to find out what she wanted to know. 
There were so many things she was not accustomed to — 
boys, for one, and places like this, and asking questions 
of strangers. 

She summoned up her courage and said: “ You wear 
no uniform? ” 

“ Uniform ! Why should I ? I don’t go to a military 
school.” 

“ But,” she stammered. “ I — I think you are call-boy 
here.” 

“ What ? a bell-boy ? ” Roger threw up his hands and 
shouted. “ So that’s why you tried to work me for a 
pitcher of ice-water? Ho! Won’t my brother laugh at 
that! You see he and I board here at Price’s. At least 
he does and Morwood let me come this spring because my 


SADIE WIENERWURST 


85 

eyes are bad, and besides, my brother wanted me. Why, 
you must take this for the Belleview-Stratford ! It’s only 
a small boarding-house Miss Janet runs ever since Cap’n 
had his money swiped and all the rest that happened to 
him. Blue Heron’s hardly on the map, you know. 
Doesn’t boast such an institution as a first-class hotel.” 
(Every once in a while Stephanie’s companion used big 
words like these.) 

Blue Herren again! — “ Where are those policemen?” 

“ Policemen? There aren’t any of them, either.” 

“ But what you mean then as you say ‘ Blue Herren ’ ? ” 
( Herren means in German “ gentlemen ” and policemen 
were blue Herren whom Stephanie had seen every day of 
her city life.) 

Roger looked blank. “Blue Heron? Why, Blue 
Heron’s the name of this place. Named after the bird, 
I s’pose, that stands on one leg out in the meadows. You 
see ’em once in a long time now. Policemen ? ” He 
wondered if the strange girl were not a little wrong in 
her mind perhaps. Like Cap’n. But the thought of 
Cap’n reminded him of the supper-table and at this he 
was suddenly taken with what appeared to Stephanie 
some serious disorder. 

“Oh, my! Oh, ho, ho! ‘Mrs. Weatherburst ! ’ 
There you sat looking as if you’d been blowing around 
the beach for a week and Cap’n every other minute ad- 
dressin’ you as ‘Mrs. Weatherburst.’ Oh, ho! hi!” 
Roger threw himself back on the sofa in an ecstasy. 
“ Oh, how I wish my brother had been there ! ” 

Roger laughed his laugh out. Then he opened his 
eyes and the first thing he saw was his companion’s face. 
It wore a queer expression, as if she would politely laugh 


86 


BLUE HERON COVE 


too but couldn’t quite pull it off. The corners of her 
mouth went down instead, her face began to work, and 
she dropped her chin and gave a big sniff between the 
lapels of Cap’n’s coat. Roger could see she hadn’t meant 
to do it — she wasn’t a cry-baby. 

“Oh, say!” He sat up with a jerk. “I didn’t 
mean ” 

She crooked one great woolen sleeve forlornly over her 
face. 

Roger thought of several things but chiefly of his big 
brother. His brother, who never had been to school 
much or had advantages himself but who set a very high 
standard in the matter of being “ decent ” and “ cour- 
teous”; his brother, who was probably the hugest man 
in Jersey and at the same time the gentlest to small crea- 
tures. He remembered also that this queer little Sadie 
was a stranger. 

What could he do to cheer her up? He thought of 
something but hesitated because it was his cherished 
secret and pet project. Was it a thing you could let a 
girl into? But she was such a doleful object, she cer- 
tainly needed something thoroughly interesting to think 
about. 

He dashed out and into his room across the hall, then 
back again with an armful of books. 

“ Here, don’t cry any more but read these and look at 
the pictures and you’ll have something to take up your 
attention. And looka’ here — these aren’t the real thing, 
the most interesting part. There’s a secret too, some- 
thing I’ve studied out myself and I’m dead sure I’m on a 
trail nobody ever struck before. If you like the books 
I’ll let you in on it. Nobody else knows, even my 


SADIE WIENERWURST 


87 

brother. He’d laugh; he’s grown up and in business and 
makes fun of what I get out of books. He doesn’t realize 
it’s going to benefit him most of all if I’m right. Would 
you like to be in on this and help me ferret out an 
extremely thrilling secret ? ” 

Stephanie drew the backs of both hands down over her 
eyes and peeked sideways at the books. She didn’t know 
what he was talking about but understood that he meant 
to please her. 

“ Take ’em to your room and read ’em to-morrow.” 

He piled them in her lap and she said, “ I thank you,” 
and added shyly, “ Please excuse the crying.” 

She began turning the books over and spelling out 
their titles : 

The Black 'Avenger of the Spanish Main. 

The Pirate Smugglers. 

The Freebooter, or the Scourge of the Caribbean 
Sea. 

The Pirates' Own Book. 

“ I recommend that last one the very highest of all,” 
declared Roger. 


CHAPTER VIII 


PIRATES 

When Mrs. Pharo came upstairs and called Stephanie, 
Roger politely carried the books into her room and 
stopped to explain things : 

“ That iron shelf with your washbowl and pitcher and 
soap in it is the old sink. Under here I guess they used 
to keep frying-pans, and all those cupboards and drawers 
were for knives and coffee-pots and pepper and every- 
thing else that belongs in kitchens. There’s your friend, 
the stove-pipe hole. If you fired a paper-wad through it 
’twould land right on my brother’s bed. Well, good- 
night, Sadie. See you later about you know what.” 

“ Good-night,” said Stephanie as soon as she realized 
that “ Sadie” meant herself. “You shall sleep well, I 
hope.” 

“ Sure to,” Roger declared. 

He went downstairs and told Cap’n Price that that 
new girl was the po-/fZ-est kid. 

“ She says please or thank you or Happy New Year 
or sump’m every time she opens her mouth.” 

“ Who does that ’ere ? ” asked Cap’n. 

He was a hard person to tell things to, for he wanted 
every little point explained and the next minute had for- 
gotten the whole affair. 

“ Sadie.” 

“ Sadie who?” 


88 


PIRATES 


89 


“ Sadie Wienerwurst.” 

“ I don’t know her,” said the Cap’n blankly. 

Mrs. Bill Pharo laid out a comb and brush, a pin- 
cushion and a buttonhook on a shelf over the frying-pan 
cupboard and placed a toothbrush in a glass tumbler in 
the sink. 

“ There. Now I guess you’re provided for. The pin- 
cushion and comb was in the south chamber and that 
toothbrush was in a washstand drawer and I can’t see as 
it’s a bit wore. I’ll look up an old pair of black stockin’s 
of my grown-up daughter’s. What happened — did your 
ma get your summer and winter things mixed up or did 
you put on them short stockin’s yourself ? ” 

The new boarder shook her head. She was sitting in 
the rocking-chair looking on while her bed was made, 
her coat and hat hung up and the big woolly nightgown 
she had worn to bed laid out. Mrs. Pharo was a stout 
person who always rested one hand, palm upward, 
across the front of her waist when she stopped to talk. 
It was hard for her to bend over. 

“ You ought not to throw your best coat down that 
way. What with the ride and the wettin’, it’s took con- 
siderable damage and ’twas a handsome piece of goods. 
How much is that silk worth a yard in Hoboken? ” 

The new boarder shook her head. 

“ Well, of course you wouldn’t know if ’twas bought 
for you by some of your folks. They’re real well off, 
ain’t they? ” 

The new boarder shook her head. 

“ Oh, they ain’t? Well, I wondered how you hap- 
pened to come down dressed so scanty and not even a 
hand-bag. But you got a trunk cornin’, of course ? ” 


90 


BLUE HERON COVE 


The new boarder shook her head. 

“What, no trunk! Well, Janet’s got some fixin’ out 
to do. But then, she’s good-hearted. I s’pose you think 
the world of Miss Janet Price ?” 

The new boarder shook her head. 

“ You don’t like Miss Janet? ” 

The new boarder shook her head. 

“ Well, you’d ought to.” 

The questioner was shocked into a few moments’ 
silence. She had set the room to rights and stood look- 
ing around to see if everything was done so that she 
could leave. Stephanie thought this meant that Mrs. 
Pharo was ready at last to wait on her. She held out 
her left hand. 

“ Please, this first,” she said. Mrs. Pharo looked at 
the hand. “ What’s the matter with it? ” 

“ Please, the manicure ? Iam now two days without 
and look only, how it is necessary ! ” 

“ Rheumatism, did you say? ” 

“ No, please, the manicure.” 

Mrs. Pharo shook her head. “ You’ll have to go some- 
wheres else for that. They don’t give any kind of cures 
here — rubbing and that. It’s as much as Miss Janet can 
do to feed ’em and keep the house runnin’. Of course 
Mis’ Piffin’ton gets relief here from hay fever durin’ July 
and August but that’s only the sea air. She and the lady 
from Philadelphia up and packs their trunks soon’s the 
golden-rod blooms and by that time Janet, she’s glad to 
see ’em go. If you wanted to take a cure you ought to 
gone to Asb’ry Park or Atlantic City where they do all 
them fancy tricks. But if your folks ain’t well off, why 
I s’pose they had to pick out a small place like Blue 


PIRATES 


9i 


Heron. Well, I guess everything’s fixed. It may soak 
in a little round them winders but ’twon’t dround you, I 
guess. How loud the surf sounds in this nor’east room ! 
It’s been poundin’ at the sandhills not more’n forty foot 
from our house, and Swaller Bay’s backed right up into 
the barn. Well, good-night, Sadie. Hope you 
don’t suffer much in your hand, whatever’s the mat- 
ter of it.” 

As Mrs. Pharo closed the door perhaps it occurred to 
her that it was a very small boarder who sat there staring 
after her with big eyes, for she put her head in again 
to say: 

“ Now, don’t you get nervous, child. Cap’n’s almost 
under you and Roger right next door. Janet’ll be here 
soon as the trains run. Well, I wish you a good rest. 
If you was as drug out as I be you’d need it.” 

Mrs. Pharo could be heard lumbering away and open- 
ing the hall door, as she went out, to a shrieking gust of 
wind. If her thoughts had not been taken up with the 
bother of getting home in rubber boots, and carrying a 
lantern across the tracks and the flooded meadows, she 
might have been more sympathetic. She wanted to 
oblige “ Price’s,” for Janet had helped her out many a 
time, but when she agreed to look after Cap’n Price for 
a day while Janet went up to town she certainly hadn’t 
bargained on a three-day nor’easter and a strange girl 
upstairs. 

Stephanie heard the outside door shut and then could 
hear nothing more except the storm. How the house 
shook! The wind seemed to pant against it. That 
afternoon she had seen through her blurred window 
what made the great crash and roar — again, and again, 


92 


BLUE HERON COVE 


and again. Out on the edge of the world, beyond a few 
little perched-up houses, fierce gray crests reared them- 
selves, broke, and tossed spray twenty feet in air. That 
was the ocean. Not the pretty blue ocean she had seen 
on fine days at Magnolia and Narragansett but the kind 
they had here in this lonely place. 

That woman had gone away. But surely some one 
else would come soon to tend to her. She had had, all 
day, no bath. There was a bathroom with tub and 
faucets next this room but she couldn’t turn on the water 
in the bath; she had tried this afternoon. Her face even 
was not clean ; it felt sticky. Her finger-nails had never 
been like this before. She needed slippers and a kimono 
and a handkerchief. She needed a carafe of cold water 
and a little glass beside her bed. She needed some little 
tablets, pink ones and brown ones, in case she coughed 
in the night. Who would brush her hair ? Where were 
the fresh clothes to put on in the morning? She could 
not go downstairs again in these. 

Wondering and waiting she sat quiet a long time. It 
was so strange here. Could it be possible that she had 
been brought to the wrong place? The big chauffeur 
hadn’t meant to, of course. He was a kind giant. But 
perhaps he had misunderstood the directions and brought 
her to some other place which had, to be sure, a Miss 
Janet, but a Miss Janet that was away mostly. 

This made her feel like crying again. At the Juilliard 
one couldn’t laugh or cry without annoying Tante. She 
remembered once long ago she had made a terrible crying 
and kicked the wall and broken a vase — something about 
Herr Vater, she had forgotten what. She never did it 
again. But for some reason she felt just like that now. 


PIRATES 


93 


Then the outside hall door was opened again and some- 
body began clumping around the next room, whistling. 

“ That boy,” whispered Stephanie, and it seemed less 
lonesome. 

When quiet had settled down in his room she knew it 
must be very late. She unfastened the clothes it had 
been such a labor to put on and in the large, striped, 
woolly nightgown crept to bed. She didn’t know how 
you switched off glass lamps like the one the woman had 
left on her shelf, so it kept on burning through the night. 

The last thing she thought of was her journal. The 
giant had promised to find it. Why didn’t he bring it to 
her ? Where had he vanished indeed ? She had looked 
out of the window for him this afternoon thinking so 
large a person would be easy to discover in this flat place, 
but nothing had been visible except the little shut-up 
houses and the storm. 

During the night the heavy northeast gale, which in 
forty-eight hours had contrived to alter the Jersey coast- 
line and skew up several sections of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad, wore itself out at last. By early morning 
Cap’n Price discovered that the wind had shifted to 
north’ard and the storm was over. 

Jake Headly of the life-saving crew stopped at the 
door to say that Hosy Tonkins’ house had been turned 
over and stood on end and they wanted help to set it 
straight again. 

“ Gales like this ’ere occurs only when the moon is in 
pogy,” asserted Jake, who had been studying an almanac. 

“Pogy!” ejaculated Cap’n Price. “ I never hearda 
that quarter. This time of year it awliz gets round to 
naw’east and blows like a streak of gimblets.” 


94 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Stephanie slept heavily in the close room. She woke 
at last with a start and called out : 

“ Hannchen ! ” 

Then she realized where she was. 

Beside her room at the Juilliard with its brocade and 
mahogany, the rooms she had waked up in before be- 
longed to luxurious hotels at certain expensive resorts. 
Thither each summer, while Aunt Katherine toured or 
visited, and sometimes also in the winter, her Fraulein 
took her. There the days passed in a round of driving 
or walking at appointed hours, dressing, shampooing, 
massage, napping, eating, and for hours sitting waiting 
in pergolas, courts and verandas where the Frauleins and 
nurses came to gossip. 

There the bedrooms were much alike. They had tinted 
walls, wicker or painted furniture, much chintz, a large 
bathroom, and on the wall a telephone into which Frau- 
lein had only to murmur what they wanted and behold, 
it was immediately at the door. 

In this room there was not a single object Stephanie 
was used to except herself and a little heap of clothing 
on a rocking-chair. 

The walls were boarded part way up and painted 
brown. Two or three odd pieces of carpet on the floor 
served as rugs. Over the window, which was divided 
into twelve little panes, some old gray net was fastened. 
The air was close with musty odors which Stephanie did 
not recognize, of old straw mattress, fried fish of the 
past, and the lamp which had burned itself out in the 
night. 

“ This is perhaps the accustomed smell of kitchens,” 
thought Stephanie. The smell was obnoxious, her bed 


PIRATES 


95 

hard and lumpy, the outlook from her window gray. But 
she liked the kitchen arrangements. She decided that if 
nobody came and she had to stay here in this room she 
could at least look in all the cupboards and pretend that 
they contained the things she wanted. 

She had hardly ever “ pretended ” at the Juilliard. 
There was always somebody looking. Never in her life 
before had she been left so long alone as yesterday and 
this morning. Even her one great affection had been 
stifled and told to nobody but a little book with imitation- 
leather covers. 

Nobody came. There was less noise outside this 
morning and not a sound within the house. The truth 
was that Mrs. Pharo lay in bed at home with lumbago, 
brought on by her neighborly exertions. Cap’n Price 
and Roger had eaten breakfast and gone to Hosy 
Tonkins’ where all the village was helping to set his 
house right side up. Stephanie had slept late. It was 
now the middle of the morning. 

She lowered her feet to the floor, then drew back with 
an “ Ach ! ” and brushed off some particles of sand. At 
length on her tip-toes she gingerly picked her way around 
the room. 

She opened all the doors and presses. 

“ In here are plates of toast and butter,” she told her- 
self in her accustomed tongue. “ Many little silver plates 
with pieces of butter on them. And in this are omelettes 
aux truffe and hot cocoa and hot muffins. And here a 

shelf full of orange marmalade. And this ” But 

this cupboard was not entirely empty for here Mrs. Pharo 
had laid the books of that boy. Stephanie had forgotten 
about them. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


96 

“ So — he laughs because I blunder but later he is sorry 
and explains and presents books.” 

She read again the titles. 

“ Pirates. They are the pretty talking birds.” She 
was thinking of parrots seen in the Bronx Park zoo. 

“ Here is amusement for me. Fraulein doesn't know 
how I can read the English books. I could read all those 
in Tante’s sitting-room if they would let me. But there 
are never any nice books in my school-room, only the 
stupid Schiller and Heine.” 

She carried Roger's books to the bed and arranged 
herself to read. 

Her first glance through these volumes startled her. 
Pirates were not birds, it seemed, but ugly men in ships 
or by the seashore. The Pirates' Own Book had most 
pictures and worse ones, so she went back to that. It 
fell open in her hands at a terrible scene, The Pirates 
Pelting Cap’n Skinner with Glass Bottles. 

These were curious old books indeed that Roger had 
picked out to cheer her up. He had found them tucked 
away at the back in a corner cupboard in Cap’n Price’s 
room. It was on his first vacation spent here that he 
discovered them and after that, he ate, drank, breathed, 
and dreamed — pirates. 

They were bound in brown leather which was crum- 
bling off, and they smelled musty, and the illustrations 
were hideous woodcuts. 

Stephanie held The Pirates' Own Book on her knees 
and bent over the picture of the unfortunate Cap’n 
Skinner. 

Once, while they were passing in the limousine, two 
men in an excavation, whom Fraulein called Italian day- 


PIRATES 


97 


laborers, had been shouting and trying to hit each other 
with pickaxes and there was a great crowd and a police- 
man had come running. It was the only scene of vio- 
lence she had ever looked at. 

“ Ach ! ” she whispered to the old picture. “ Such 
shocking day-laborers ! ” 

For one of them was tied with ropes and two others 
with fierce faces were waving huge black bottles and had 
smashed one against his head so that he fell down with 
his mouth wide open. It was the most frightful picture 
Stephanie had ever seen. The German classics had not 
hinted at such doings. 

She turned over the pages. The Pirates striking off 
the arm of Captain Babcock. Captain Kidd hanging in 
Chains. The Pirates fire into Lieut. Kearney's boat 
while reconnoitering the shore. Blackboard's Head on 
the End of the Bowsprit. 

Then she found the very first page and began to read : 

“ In the mind of the mariner there is a superstitious 
horror connected with the name of Pirate; and there are 
few subjects that interest and excite the curiosity of man- 
kind generally, more than the desperate exploits, foul do- 
ings, and diabolical career of these monsters in human 
form. A piratical crew is generally formed of the des- 
peradoes and runagates of every clime and nation. The 
pirate, from the perilous nature of his occupation, when 
not cruising on the ocean, the great highway of nations, 
selects the most lonely isle of the sea for his retreat, or 
secretes himself near the shores of rivers, bays, and 
lagoons of thickly-wooded and uninhabited countries, so 
that if pursued he can escape to the woods and mountain 
glens of the interior. The islands of the Indian Ocean, 


BLUE HERON COVE 


98 

and the east and west coasts of Africa as well as the 
West Indies, have been their haunts for centuries; and 
vessels navigating the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, are 
often captured by them, the passengers and crew mur- 
dered, the money and most valuable part of the cargo 
plundered, the vessel destroyed, thus obliterating all trace 
of their unhappy fate, and leaving friends and relatives 
to mourn their loss from the inclemencies of the elements, 
when they were butchered in cold blood by their fellow- 
men, who by practically adopting the maxim that 
4 dead men tell no tales/ enable themselves to pursue their 
diabolical career with impunity. The pirate . . . when 
not engaged in robbing . . . passes his time singing old 
songs with choruses like : 

“ * Drain, drain the bowl, each fearless soul, 

Let the world wag as it will; 

Let the heavens growl, let the devil howl, 

Drain, drain the deep bowl and fill/ 

“ Thus his hours of relaxation are passed in wild and 
extravagant frolics amongst the lofty forests of palms 
and spicy groves of the Torrid Zone, and amidst the 
aromatic and beautiful flowering vegetable productions 
of that region. He has fruits delicious to the taste. It 
would be supposed that his wild career would be one of 
delight. 

“ But the apprehension and foreboding of the mind, 
when under the influence of remorse, are powerful, and 
every man, whether civilized or savage, has interwoven 
in his constitution a moral sense, which secretly condemns 
him when he has committed an atrocious action, even 


PIRATES 


99 


when he is placed in situations which raise him above the 
fear of human punishment for : 

“ ‘ Conscience the torturer of the soul, unseen, 

Does fiercely brandish a sharp scourge within; 
Severe decrees may keep our tongues in awe, 

But to our minds what edicts can give law ? 

Even you yourself to your own breast shall tell 
Your crimes, and your own conscience be your hell/ 

“ With the name of pirate is also associated the idea 
of rich plunder, caskets of jewels, chests of gold ingots, 
bags of outlandish coins, secreted in lonely out-of-the- 
way places, or buried about the wild shores of rivers, and 
unexplored sea coasts, near rocks and trees bearing mys- 
terious marks, indicating where the treasure was hid. 
And as it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his 
booty, and from the perilous life he leads, being often 
killed or captured, he can never re-visit the spot again; 
immense sums remain buried in those places, and are 
irrevocably lost. Search is often made by persons who 
labor in anticipation of throwing up with their spade and 
pickax gold bars, diamond crosses, sparkling amongst 
the dirt, bags of golden doubloons and chests, wedged 
close with moidores, ducats, and pearls ; but though great 
treasures be hid in this way it seldom happens that any 
is so recovered. ,, 

This was the preface, with a picture of a bearded crea- 
ture like a baboon with a little boy’s hat on its head. 

“ I don’t like pirates ! ” cried Stephanie in German, 
pushing the book away from her and looking round with 
a shudder. 


IOO 


BLUE HERON COVE 


The house seemed strangely empty. No footsteps or 
voices could be heard, but there were a thousand noises 
made by the wind. If you listened these began to sound 
like persons tip-toeing, tapping, prying at cracks. Where 
were the people she had seen last night? One of them 
was called “ Captain ” and were not these pictures all of 
captains? If she read carefully she might find some- 
thing about Captain Price. Perhaps he was a pirate. 

All the long afternoon the wind, growing less, still 
kept up its worrying round the empty house; the surf 
boomed and gray scud raced across the section of sky 
visible from Stephanie’s window. She had finally 
emptied the cup of cold coffee left on a shelf the after- 
noon before by Mrs. Pharo. It gave her strength to 
puzzle over the hard English words and guess at those 
she didn’t understand. Still she read on, now and then 
glancing round to listen, with her doubled fist pressed 
against her lips. 

“ Among the distinguished individuals who lurked 
about the colonies was Captain Robert Kidd, who in the 
beginning of King William’s war commanded a privateer 
in the West Indies. * . . He had now become notorious 
as a nondescript animal of the ocean. He was somewhat 
of a trader, something more of a smuggler, but mostly a 
pirate. He had traded many years among the pirates, 
in a little rakish vessel, that could run into all kinds of 
water. He knew all their haunts and lurking places and 
was always hooking about on mysterious voyages. . . . 

“ Previous to sailing Captain Kidd buried his Bible on 
the seashore, in Plymouth Sound, its divine precepts be- 
ing so at variance with his wicked course of life that he 


PIRATES ioi 

did not choose to keep a book which condemned him in 
his lawless career. ... 

“ He sailed for Boston laden with booty, with a crew 
of swaggering companions at his heels. But no sooner 
did he show himself in Boston than the alarm was given 
of his reappearance and measures were taken to arrest 
him. The daring character which Kidd had acquired, 
however, and the desperate fellows who followed like 
bulldogs at his heels caused a little delay in his 
arrest. He took advantage of this to bury the 
greater part of his immense treasure which has never 
been found. . . . 

“ Kidd died hard, for the rope with which he was first 
tied up broke with his weight and he tumbled to the 
ground. He was tied up a second time, and more effec- 
tually. Hence came the story of Kidd’s being hung 
twice. 

“ The report of his having buried great treasures of 
gold and silver, which he actually did before the arrest, 
set the brains of all the good people along the coast in 
a ferment. There were rumors on rumors of great sums 
of money found here and there, sometimes in one part of 
the country, sometimes in another; with Moorish inscrip- 
tions, doubtless the spoils of his Eastern prizes. 

“ Some reported the treasure to have been buried in 
solitary, unsettled places about Plymouth and Cape Cod; 
but by degrees various other parts, not only on the 
eastern coast but along the shores of the Sound, and 
even Manhattan and Long Island were gilded by these 
rumors. In fact . . . consternation had spread among 
the pirates in every part of the provinces; they had 
secreted their money and jewels in lonely out-of-the-way 


102 


BLUE HERON COVE 


places, about the wild shores of the sea-coast, and dis- 
persed themselves over the country.” 

“ The wild shores of the sea-coast,” repeated Stephanie. 
Wind and booming surf gave answer that this might be 
the very place where these dreadful men had “ dispersed 
themselves over the country.” 

She hated the book and yet was held by a dreadful 
fascination. She read the headings of pages and could 
not resist what was below : “ Captain and Mate Mur- 
dered,” “ Fearful Situation of the Pirates,” “ Cruelty of 
Captain Low,” “ Ten Pirates Hung.” She read the 
whole story of Blackbeard who was so called because of 
his “ long black beard, which like a frightful meteor cov- 
ered his whole face and terrified all America more than 
any comet that had ever appeared. He stuck lighted 
matches under his hat, which appeared on both sides of 
his face and eyes.” 

Here was Blackbeard’s head dangling from the end of 
a pole against the sky. 

Poor Stephanie had had that morning a terrible over- 
dose of pirates. 

For a moment she glared at this picture. She felt 
cold, she dared not move. It seemed as if winking an 
eyelash might cause pirates to reach out from corners, 
cupboards, under the bed, anywhere. 

Then she gathered all the books together and jumped 
out of bed. Where to throw them ? The window ? It 
wouldn’t come open. The door ? But they would only 
be lying in wait when she went out. She must get rid 
of them somehow. Those hideous faces must be out of 


PIRATES 


103 


the room before she could dress and make ready to run 
away, to New York, to tell Herr Vater about the dread- 
ful wrong place she had been left at by mistake. 

Aha ! the hole in the wall ! 

Beneath it was a low cupboard and this she climbed 
upon by means of a chair, holding the books as far 
away from her as she could. 

On tip-toe she raised The Scourge of the Caribbean 
Sea and thump ! it was gone. The Pirate Smugglers fol- 
lowed and The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. 
Last The Pirates' Own Book tumbled through and was 
heard to fall with a bang on the other side the wall. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE EVENING TRAIN 

Cap’n Price and Roger did not come home at noon, 
as some of the neighbors’ wives cooked a dinner for those 
who were helping Hosy Tonkins. Roger felt no concern 
about the new boarder. He had left bread and butter 
and bacon on the table, after numerous explanations to 
the Cap’n. 

“ Why don’t you tidy up your galley ? What’s this 
junk for? ” 

“ For Sadie when she comes down.” 

“ Sadie who?” 

“ Sadie Wienerwurst.” 

“ Never heard of her,” said Cap’n Price. 

About four o’clock, however, Roger heard a piece of 
news that he was sure the strange girl would like to 
know. Section hands had been all day at work repairing 
the railroad bridge and now word came that the evening 
trains would run. Roger posted off to the house to tell 
of it. 

Just as he sprang up the steps he met the new girl 
coming out of the entry door. 

“ Listen! They say the 4.15 ” He took a good 

look at her and stopped short. “What’s the matter? 
Where were you going? ” 

She had on all her own things, including her hat and 
gloves and the white silk coat, much wrinkled and spotted. 
In her arms she was lugging the big fur-lined overcoat. 

104 


THE EVENING TRAIN 


105 


To-day she had managed four or five buttons on each 
shoe. Her face wore a look of determination rendered 
more grim by tear-puffed lips and eyelids. 

“ Sadie, what are you going to do ? ” 

At Roger’s sudden appearance she had jumped a little, 
as if she had meant to slip out secretly. 

“ I go away.” 

“ Where to?” 

“ New York.” 

“ You can’t now. The trains aren’t running. Maybe 
a train will go later. Did you mean to start right off ? ” 

She nodded doggedly. 

“ I must. This is the wrong place.” 

“What!” 

“ Yes. I am brought on the wrong place. Here is 
not the place I am sent. Everything is wrong here. I 
have no bath, no clean clothes, no maid — nothing. Look 
only at such hair ! And no one brings my trays. Togo 
always without eating, that is not agreeable.” 

“What, didn’t you find the bread and butter and 
bacon ? ” 

“No, I have nothing. And it gives me an ill feeling 
within myself.” 

“ Scotty ! I should think it would. What’ve you 
been doing all day? Just staying upstairs having the 
dumps? No wonder you want to leave. But you had 
sump’m to read anyway — those books of mine.” 

She threw him a strange glance and shrunk back, 
hunching up one shoulder nervously. 

“ Those books. Ach ! ” 

“ Did you read ’em?” 

“ Yes, I read.” 


io6 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“Well, aren’t they just dandy? I found ’em all in 
Cap’n’s cupboard tucked away behind some other things. 
I can’t think how they came there. Well, after I read 
’em I got interested in this subject and went into it thor- 
oughly, in the public library in town and thought out 
my secret. But pshaw ; no use to talk about that now. 
You’re sure going away? ” 

“ Please, yes, sir,” respectfully but positively. “ This 
is one wrong place for me.” 

“ I wonder if that’s so. Maybe it is. Maybe that’s 
why Mrs. Bill wasn’t ready and Cap’n doesn’t under- 
stand. Nobody told me any girl was coming. Well, all 
I can say is, somebody was awful careless. The fellow 
that brought you, he must have been a nut. Who was 
he anyway — somebody from Hoboken? You came in 
an auto, didn’t you? Was it a Ford, or what? Who 
drove it? ” 

“ A chauffeur drove and it is himself which I am 
looking for. When I know surely that this is the wrong 
place for me I think and I dress myself and come down- 
stairs. And I search, and there behind the door find 
this coat. He is mein Herr Voter's coat. * So,’ I tells 
myself, ‘ it is but one thing more — to discover that kind 
chauffeur who shall take me on New York and mein 
Herr Vater immediately.’ Please, where is he? A 
great high chauffeur like giants, even? Wiz one great 
nose and spectacles and cap.” 

“ Big and spectacles ? ” 

“ Yes. A chauffeur most peculiar. He names me 
always ‘ Highness ’ and when it is in the night, very cold 
and a great wind blowing, we stop in the road and 
play that game — I forget his name — one must shout 


THE EVENING TRAIN 107 

f You’re it ’ and run and leap, and suddenly must one 
cower on the ground. Him who cowers thus man dare 
not touch. Know you such a game ? ” 

“ Don’t believe I do.” 

“ And that chauffeur being surprise, cry 4 Ha ! ’ and 
once he say ‘ By hump ! ’ Like that — * By hump.’ ” 

“ What ! ” cried Roger, getting excited all in a minute. 
“ He wasn’t a great big e-normous fellow in a mixy suit 
and blue tie, was he? And black eyes that look sharp 
as an eagle’s sometimes, and an awfully big nose, and 
shell-rimmed goggles ? ” 

Stephanie nodded doubtfully. 

“ You didn’t hear his name?” 

“ Yes, I hear his name. It is a comical name. He is 
Mr. Dansmith.” 

Roger threw up his arms and nearly tumbled off the 
steps backwards. “ It is, it is ! Oh, I’ll find him for 
you! Pretty quick too. I’ll show you Mr. Dansmith. 
What a joke ! And I’d just come to tell you about the 
4.15. Come on! Leave the big coat. Don’t stop for 
anything. I hear the whistle at the Bonnet now. Oh, 
you’re in the right place, all right. That chauffeur never 
made a mistake. Why didn’t they tell me? He must 
have gone away the same night! Pretty howdy-do! 
Some mix-up ! Say ! ” 

Stephanie found herself running after Roger across 
railroad tracks, hurried and beckoned on by him. They 
ran down a yellow road, skirting pools of water which 
covered part of it, and came to a platform beside the 
tracks, where a little crowd of people had assembled. 

Roger rushed into their midst, but Stephanie stood 
back at one side. She looked around, up the tracks 


io8 


BLUE HERON COVE 


and down, out to the bay and sky in front of her and 
then turning, saw the ocean with a pearly horizon 
above it and heard it pounding softly. Way out on 
its deep blue a ship with four big square sails and some 
little three-cornered ones was riding along proudly in the 
evening light. 

Suddenly she realized that the sun was shining and 
that Blue Heron was beautiful. 

Only that minute indeed had the light burst through 
some dark clouds in the west — dust-feathers of the storm 
rolled up at the edge of a clear, cold sky. It reddened 
everything — the houses, flashing it back gaily from all 
their windows, the faces of the people, the hillocks, 
meadows, and shining beach. 

How wide the world was here ! No high buildings to 
be seen, no high land. Few trees, except one clump of 
scraggy pines against the sky. Water on that side, blue 
as ink, water on this side, bright and smooth with little 
dark islands on its breast. Between, white and dark 
green and yellow brown, the flat land rolled towards the 
northern sky. 

Against that sky a little black puff shot up. It was 
right above the railroad tracks where in the distance they 
ran so close together that they almost touched. 

All the people craned their necks to look that way. 

“ That’s her ! She’s cornin’ ! Roger Smith, get off 
them tracks ! ” 

But Roger would jump up and down between the rails. 

A great black ball loomed up upon the tracks. It grew 
larger, thundered nearer, let out white smoke and a long 
“Too-oo, too-too-too ! ” Roger skipped back to Ste- 
phanie’s side and shouted : 


THE EVENING TRAIN 


109 


“ Watch the folks get off. Maybe you’ll see somebody 
that you know.” 

The engine came roaring down upon them, snorted, 
stopped. People began to get off the train. 

A crowd of rough-looking men climbed down first. 
They had unshaven faces and they wore slouch hats or 
caps and carried bundles done up in red pieces of cloth. 
They were something like the men that dug and shovelled 
where the streets were torn up in New York. When 
these had all come out of the car some one appeared be- 
hind them at the door — a very big, tall young man in a 
mixy suit and blue tie and a cap, with a huge nose and 
bright black eyes which were glancing in every direction. 
They espied two figures at one side of the crowd, and he 
waved his hat and laughed. 

And Stephanie jumped up and down like Roger and 
screamed : 

“ Giant ! Giant ! Giant ! ” louder than she had ever 
screamed before. 

The queer thing was that Roger was yelling at the 
same person : 

“ Dan! Dan! Hey, Dan!” 

The giant stopped waving and turned to help a woman. 
She was a little spare woman holding a great assortment 
of bundles in her arms. He said something and mo- 
tioned his head toward his two noisy friends. The 
woman looked and suddenly her bundles spilled in all 
directions on the platform. 

Next moment Stephanie was looking into eyes as shy 
and eager as her own. 

“ Mr. Alan’s little girl ! My dear, dear child ! I am 
Miss Janet Price.” 


CHAPTER X 


EXPLANATIONS ABOUT THE NEW 
BOARDER 

“ Dan ! Hey, Dan, are those your new men ? Where 
are you going to quarter ’em? Say, Dan, was it really 
you brought that new girl down in a car ? Where’d you 
get the car and what kind was it? Not a Ford, I hope? 
Did it have an automatic starter ? Why didn’t you wake y 
me up? Did you know the Long Bridge went out? I 
bet the water was over it when you crossed. Did it feel 
shaky at all? Is it all fixed now? Where’d you meet 
Miss Janet? Whata you think of that new girl any 
how? Some name, hey? Say, didja ever hear anybody 
talk so funny? Are those your new men? ” 

“Yes, they are. Now, Boxer, you run after Miss 
Janet with her bundles and wait for me at the house till 
I get this, bunch settled. Then I’ll take a day off to 
answer your questions, but for the present, can ’em.” 

Miss Janet had indeed forgotten even her bargains. 

The very second thing she .said to her new precious 
charge was : 

“ Dear, child ! You’re not dressed warm ! ” 

In a trice she had whipped off her fur piece and it was 
put round Stephanie’s neck, her jacket over Stephanie’s 
shoulders, her rubbers on the white boots. She seemed 
half minded to add her hat and who knows what besides, 
but contented herself with taking Stephanie by the hand 


no 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 


hi 


and hurrying her off down the road so fast that Roger 
had to run to catch up. 

“ Mrs. Pharo ought not to have let you go out dressed 
like this. I have an abundance of warm wraps for you 
in my trunk. Indeed they were all bought and I carried 
them the day I went to meet you. A wrecked freight 
train, it was, which interfered, and no one was hurt at 
all, so I feel I was perfectly justified in being indignant 
and I spoke to the conductor really forcibly — too much 
so perhaps — I told him the Pennsylvania Railroad ought 
to be more careful and they might cause a little girl in 
an automobile very serious consequences by their inatten- 
tion. Mr. Alan had telegraphed you needed wraps and 
I had a splendid warm coat and a sweater and mittens 
and a brown cap, the kind children are wearing, with two 
white buttons on each side, and a veil and a muffler, and 
some furs I borrowed from the lady where I was board- 
ing, and, of course, rubbers.” 

Miss Janet shook her head in reminiscence. “ That 
was a trying afternoon. I was once at the point of send- 
ing several telegrams. It was very windy and my 
bundles did seem numerous and heavy by the time I 
reached Philadelphia just after the train I wanted had 
gone. But I took one on the other division in the hopes 
of intercepting you further south and there in that lonely 
station I almost gave way. The ticket young man sent 
a telegram to Mrs. Bill for me, and I waited until dawn. 
Then I felt sure you had gone another way — and Dan 
tells me he did change his route to shorten the distance. 
Well, heretofore I have had quite a longing for travel but 
now I can’t understand why people enjoy it. When I 
reached Broad Street station at dawn that stormy morn- 


BLUE HERON COVE 


1 12 

ihg I must confess that I wept bitterly. It wasn’t the 
discomfort, or the worry, but I had been so looking for- 
ward to seeing you, my dear, for the first time.” 

“ Didn’t you know her before? ” asked Roger, who had 
come up with them. “ Hadn’t you ever seen Sadie 
Wienerwurst? ” 

At this name Miss Janet threw out one hand as if to 
ward off a blow. 

“ Don’t” 

“ Don’t what, Miss Janet?” 

“ Oh, nothing, nothing. I suppose it’s too late now 
and I must reconcile myself. Your brother broke it to 
me on the train.” 

Roger stared at Miss Janet dubiously. All this time 
the third member of the party had spoken no word but 
only taken shy, curious peeps around the edge of her 
many wraps at this, her latest Fraulein. 

A little later, upstairs in her room, she was able to 
get a better look. 

“Dear child, I’ve just heard from Roger that Mrs. 
Pharo didn’t come to-day and you went hungry! Drink 
this milk at once and I’ll bring you up a little tray and 
get supper immediately. Oh, it’s too dreadful to think 
of ! Hungry and shut up in this room to sleep on a straw 
mattress and wash in the old sink and stare at those 
kitchen cupboards. Mrs. Pharo meant well and 
I mustn’t blame her too much. But for Mr. Alan’s 
little girl ! ” 

Very little and thin was the new Fraulein. Or was 
she the maid? She had a small, bony, high-nosed face, 
eager, bright-blue eyes, a gentle mouth, a little round gray 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 


113 

curl on each thin temple, and two vertical lines between 
her eyebrows. She moved quickly, held her head at one 
side to look at things. Stephanie kept wondering what 
this Miss Janet reminded her of and then it came to her 
— a Central Park robin. 

She was pecking round the room setting it to rights. 
She plucked out the toothbrush between thumb and finger 
and cast it into the waste-basket. 

“ For Mr. Alan’s little girl! Ugh! ” 

This reminded her of the crowning grievance and she 
turned on Stephanie quickly. 

“ Oh, my dear child, how did you come to choose one 
like that ? ” 

“ I have not, but the thick lady choosed him.” 

“ What do you mean? ” 

“ The toothbrush.” 

“ But I meant the name. I had such beautiful ones 
in mind, from stars and characters of fiction and queens 
of history and flowers and gems, not combined in one, 
of course, but offering such a pleasing choice. Why did 
you choose Sadie Wienerwurst ? ” 

“ In Central Park I get him from a girl which lives by 
her own Vater on top of a delicatessen.” 

“ A what? ” 

“ A shop of delicatessen.” 

“ What is that?” 

“ Please, a shop of sauerkraut and schmierkase, kar- 
toffel salat and pockelharinge. I have once a Fraulein 
which takes me sometimes in such shops.” 

“ I don’t believe it was a nice ladylike place,” said 
Miss Janet with suspicion, and she took a prejudice that 
instant against everything connected with Frauleins. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


114 

“ My dear/’ she asked hesitatingly, “ about your own 
name — why were you called Stephanie ? ” 

“ Only mein Fraulein say it is a Cherman princess of 
the name, and I have think it is perhaps by account of 
this I spik always Cherman.” 

Miss Janet stopped by Stephanie’s chair and drew one 
small slender hand into her own and patted it and looked 
with eager affection at the upturned face. 

But the new boarder only returned her look with one 
of doubt and reserve. 

“ Well, Janet, I drug myself off the bed soon’s I heard 
you come in on the 4.35. You musta had a splendid long 
visit in the city. Well, we had our troubles here but we 
done our best. I read all your letters good and careful 
’n’ then used my own judgment. The little girl wa’n’t 
much care, on’y she didn’t come reg’lar to her meals and 
was kinda helpless — just set ’n’ let me pick up arter her — 
and she’s hard to make out, count of bein’ an outlaw — 
Dutch, Rawger says, but I thought she talked more 
Swedish. But quiet! If I hadn’t sent Rawger up to 
tap on the door I b’lieve she’d a set upstairs all night. 
It’s too bad her folks is poor. How come you to take 
her, Janet? ” 

“ She’s the daughter of an old friend, Maria.” 

“ Some your mother’s kin ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Folks you went to school with? ” 

“ No.” 

“ Well, not any one’s ever boarded here for I certny 
don’t recollect that name, Wienerwurst.” 

“ Maria, your feathers will dye green but I still think 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 115 

you would like black much better and there’s time to 
write yet and it only comes to seventy-five cents at a 
little shop where they were very considerate and reason- 
able and ” 

“ Law, Janet ! We got them feathers settled tee-finally 
afore you went. But these Wienerwursts — I surmised 
they wa’n’t well off when I saw their girl’s outfit — hand- 
some outside but scanty underneath ; socks and no sleeves 
this weather. What’s Mr. Wienerwurst do ? ” 

“ Oh, ah — the dear child says he has, ahem ! a shop.” 

“ Shop, hn ? Dry goods ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ What does he sell ? ” 

“ Oh, — various articles. Maria, I brought you a little 
present in my trunk and I wish it was more of a return 
for all your trouble. I’m so grateful to you 

“ Now don’t mention that. Give an inch and take an 
ell’s the rule here on the Beach, I guess. Well, I’d con- 
cluded her father was a street car driver, ’count a that 
brown fur coat she was wrop in. Do you expect any the 
other Wienerwursts down soon?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ Do they all talk that Swedish ? ” 

“ No, no. That is, yes. That is — Maria, you really 
ought not to stay out, with your back. Have you tried 
poultices? ” 

“ Poultices! They wouldn’t ketch hold of my back. 
But that reminds me, what I principally stepped over for 
was to rec’mend Omega Oil for the little sufferer.” 

“ Who do you mean? ” 

“ Why, Sadie Wienerwurst, for whatever’s the matter 
of her arm. Seems she come down here to get some 


n6 BLUE HERON COVE 

kinda cure for it. Is it anything that was in the Wiener- 
wurst family ? ” 

“ Maria, isn't that Cap’n Bill going towards your back 
door from the station-house ? ” 

“ My goodness me! So ’tis. Well, you can finish 
’bout the Wienenvursts next time.” 

Dan Smith had quartered his new gang on the old 
Newbold farm in a dilapidated house which stood in the 
shadow of the only grove of trees on the island, ten or 
twelve giant pines. As he was coming away after the 
assignment of bunks and blankets he found Roger wait- 
ing for him on a lumber pile. 

“ It’s all right to-day but don’t come around the bunk- 
house any more, Boxer.” 

“ Why, I’ve explored that old Newbold house and all 
this tract lots of times.” 

“ Right. But from now on keep away. This is the 
toughest bunch of wharf-rats and hobos they’ve ever 
worked off on me. I’ve quartered ’em here instead of 
at Montague to keep them away from the Bay side Hotel 
and those places, if I can.” 

“ Why doesn’t Brother Morwood give good ones ? ” 

“ You may search me. He was grouchier than ever. 
Oh, he’s got it in for me. Don’t know how much longer 

I can stick it out Well, I’ve no business letting off 

on you, kid. What was it you were telling me about 
her Highness? Talks funny? She doesn’t talk any 
funnier than you do sometimes.” 

“ Dan, what do you mean about not sticking it out?” 

“Just talk. Forget it. Tell me how you get on 
with her Royal Highness.” 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 


117' 

“ Is that what you call her? She’s a queer Highness. 
Oh, Dan, some show last night at supper ! Cap’n got her 
name all mixed up and he called her Mrs. Weatherburst 
and Mrs. everything else till I could hardly sit up. I bet 
he hasn’t got her number yet and we’ll have some more 
fun to-night. And Dan, she’s the queerest! She acts 
just as though Cap’n’s house was a big hotel and thought, 
because the stairs were outside, they were a fire-escape, 
and she wanted a maid to button her shoes for her. And 
she took me for a bell-boy 1 Asked me to shag a pitcher 
of ice-water for her.” 

“ Well, you brought her some, I hope? ” said the giant 
soberly. 

“ N-no, I didn’t. A fellow can’t get to the ice-house 
very easy in a nor’easter. Besides, the idea of her want- 
ing to be waited on like that! You don’t really think I 
ought to have bothered, do you ? ” 

“ Yes, I think you might have managed it. I don’t 
believe she’d ever been before where there weren’t people 
to bring her what she wanted.” 

“But what kind of girl is she anyway? She said 
she’d never in her life been in a kitchen. What 
do you think the Wienerwursts live in — a bal- 
loon?” 

“ Never mind about the Wienerwursts. That little 
girl is lonely and scared and all mixed up by conditions 
she isn’t used to. You do your best to make her have 
a good time. Haven’t you done anything so far but 
make fun of her ? ” 

“ Yes, sir, Dan, I was awfully kind to her last night 
— so now. I saw she was sorter down in the mouth and 
I talked to her about some private affairs of mine and 


ii8 


BLUE HERON COVE 


lent her some of my books — intensely interesting ones 
that couldn’t help but entertain her.” 

Dan threw an amused glance at his brother. “ What 
was this intensely interesting reading?” 

“ Oh, just some books I had in my trunk,” said Roger 
noncommittally. 

By this time they had reached Cap’n Price’s house, 
where a pleasant hum of order and comfort bespoke Miss 
Janet’s presence. The brothers tramped upstairs and 
Dan entered their room first. 

“ Hullo, what’s this ! Books dumped on my pillow 
and one astride of the headboard ! ” 

Roger took a look. “ Why, those are mine ! They’re 
the ones I lent Sadie. How’d they come on the back of 

your bed like that? Why, I believe ” He glanced 

upward. “ Do you know what that girl did? She must 
of poked ’em through the old stove-pipe hole ! ” 

He looked at his brother with his eyes wide open at 
the enormity of this action. “ Well, I like that! My 
precious books. And she a girl that talks so polite. I 
guess I don’t ever put myself out for her again ! ” 

“ Easy now.” Dan took the books from his brother’s 
hand and read the titles. The Pirate Smugglers , The 
\ Scourge of the Caribbean Sea , the Black Avenger of the 
Spanish Main , The Pirates' Own Book . 

He turned the pages, looking at the pictures. “ So this 
is what you picked out to cheer up the poor little High' 
ness.” He began to chuckle. “ No wonder she quit 
cold, shut up in a lonely room with pictures like these — 
a child that probably never heard of a pirate in her life. 
I don’t blame her one bit for chucking ’em through a 
stove-pipe hole.” 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 119 

But Roger wore a look of deep injury. 

“ Oh, Father, what do you think of Mr. Alan’s little 
girl?” 

“ Whose?” 

“ Alan Rand’s. The little girl that’s staying here.” 

“ Alan Rand ? He hain’t got a girl.” 

“ Oh, but he has, Father, though I didn’t know it till 
a few days ago myself. Didn’t you get my letter? I 
couldn’t write much but I thought you would like to 
know Mr. Alan was going to entrust his only child to us. 
Don’t you think she has a lovely face ? ” 

“ There ain’t any person here by name of Rand.” 

“ Yes, I know it’s most unfortunate that we must call 
her something else until Mr. Alan himself comes down 
and straightens things out, but I hope he will soon — per- 
haps to-night’s mail will have a letter naming the time. 
Next Sunday perhaps. I wonder which of the fowls I 
could kill. They used to be almost absurd about my 
cooking — poor Steve and Mr. Alan. Ah, well! But 
meantime we must call the dear child by a most unsuit- 
able name. Perhaps they introduced her to you as — 
dear me! — Sadie Wienerwurst?” 

“ Weazlehurst? ” 

“ No, Wienerwurst.” 

The Cap’n was drawing off his coat and Miss Janet 
could not see his face and therefore missed the humorous 
look which he exchanged with the wooden peg he draped 
his oilskins on. The fact was that Cap’n Aaron Price, 
though he did forget things and get matters sadly con- 
fused at times, was again much sharper than people gave 
him credit for. After he understood perfectly he would 


120 


BLUE HERON COVE 


sometimes have his little joke on Janey, of pretending to 
be yet in the dark. 

“ Wizzlehatch? ” He shook his head. “ I never ran 
foul o’ that name before.” 

/‘Wienerwurst, Father,” said Miss Janet, very dis- 
tinctly. 

Supper was ready. The table was spread with white, 
and at the place next Miss Janet’s, between her and 
Roger, instead of ordinary crockery, a cup and saucer 
and plate were set forth, each ornamented with gilt bands 
and a moss rose and the words “ Good Girl.” 

“ They were mother’s when she was a girl in New 
England,” explained Miss Janet. 

It was on a trip down East in the 1850’s that Cap’n 
Price had met his wife. Miss Janet had gone to school 
there too, which explains why she spoke differently and 
was considered “ educated ” at Blue Heron. 

“ But why doesn’t the dear child come down? ” 

The open oven door showed biscuits and a broiled blue- 
fish. 

“ What are we standing by for ? ” asked Cap’n Price. 
“ Why don’t we come about, to eat ? ” 

“ I don’t know what can be keeping her. I pressed out 
her frock and found some things that will do until my 
trunk comes and when I carried them up I told her supper 
would be ready as soon as she came down.” 

“ She’s prob’bly looking for a taxi,” said Roger 
crossly. 

“ Let me go up and call her,” said the giant. 

When he knocked at the door of the old kitchen all was 
still within. 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 


121 


“ Hullo, Highness. Won’t you come out and speak 
to me? I didn’t have a chance at the station, but I saw 
you all right and was glad you hadn’t blown off the island 
while I was away. Aren’t you coming down to supper ? 
Miss Janet’s got a dandy one — biscuits and honey. 
Doesn’t that sound right to you? Why don’t you come 
down? We’re just waiting till you’re ready.” 

The answer came in trembling tones : “ I am not 
ready.” 

“ What’s the trouble, Highness ? ” 

“ My hairs, my hands — nothing is arranged. The thin 
one is no better than the thick one. She too goes away 
leaving me in a condition of unpreparedness.” 

The giant stared at the door. “ Suppose you do the 
best you can and then come down. Miss Janet can’t be 
always running upstairs, you know. You get ready, 
yourself, and come on down. Do it to please me.” 

A silence ensued. “ So — I shall try.” 

“ Right. I knew you were a sport.” 

He advised Miss Janet to begin, so they all sat down. 
By and by the outside door was heard to open. 

Enter the new boarder, not quite so wild as last night 
but with an odd-looking head of hair. A strand on one 
side had undergone severe discipline and hung down 
straight over the shoulder. The rest was fuzzy and 
rough and some of it was in her eyes. 

The giant jumped up and pulled out her chair. Miss 
Janet noticed hair and shoes and buttons and was not 
able to speak for a moment as it came over her that 
her new charge had needed help in these simple matters. 
But she took hold of her hand and patted it and she 
heaped her plate. 


T 22 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Dear, dear child, I hope you haven’t taken cold, 
/ou must drink this hot tea. Do you like tea? If 
there’s anything that you’re accustomed to that we don’t 
have you can just whisper it to me and we’ll get it if 
we have to send to Philadelphia. You must eat some 
honey. I never heard of a little girl that didn’t like that. 
Roger, please pass the butter. I know Roger is going to 
be happy to have a little playfellow here.” 

Roger passed the butter but did not appear happy. A 
playfellow who threw his books through a stove-pipe hole 
didn’t appeal to him at that moment. 

Stephanie placed the butter dish at the left of her plate 
and with the butter knife she spread her biscuit daintily. 

“ Will you please pass the butter, ma’am,” said Cap’n 
presently. 

Stephanie saw that the eagle-faced old man had his 
eye upon her and she looked frightened but did nothing. 

“ I’d like to trouble that lady What did you say 

was the name, Rawger ? ” 

“ Sadie Wienerwurst.” 1 

“ Beam-end-first ? Mrs. Beam-end-first, I’d take it 
kindly if ye’d pass me a line on the butter dish.” 

Miss Janet took the butter and passed it by way of 
Dan, as Roger seemed to be having convulsions. 

“ Wien-er-wurst, Father,” she pronounced anxiously. 

“ That’s what I said — Beam-end-first.” 

Stephanie threw a distressed glance at the giant. 

“ Cap’n,” interrupted that young man. “ What was 
the fastest sailing record when you shipped on the Cape 
May Belle in ’48? ” 

“ The Sea Witch was then. That was before the other 
California clippers and of course the Sword Fish was 


ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 


123 


one of those, but a handsomer ship than the Sea Witch 
never rounded the Horn as I know with my own eyes 
for didn’t she pass the Belle off Hatteras, not a cable’s 
length away.” 

The Cap’n was launched on a favorite topic and 
through suppertime he discoursed of old sailing records 
and names like Flying Cloud , Sea Serpent, and Rainbow 
to the young man at his right whom he addressed as 
“ Dannie.” 

To this same young man Stephanie felt a warm throb 
of gratitude. He seemed an old friend, true and tried, 
the only connecting link between her accustomed life and 
this eccentric place. 


CHAPTER XI 


LETTERS ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 

Surety and Trust Company 
New York 

24/3/14. 

Dear Miss Janet: 

Yours of the 21st, 22d, and 23d rec’d. Was sorry you 
had all that trouble trying to reach your party but am 
glad to note by your last that they reached Blue Heron all 
right and that you expect to get down to-day. I trust 
this will find you safely arrived and entirely recovered 
from discomforts already suffered in doing me this great 
kindness. 

As I indicated in my telegram Tuesday evening, I was 
able to arrange matters here as well as I had hoped. I 
reached the hotel before any alarm was raised and was 
waiting there when the Countess came in. She made 
threats and has cancelled her sailing for the present. I 
doubt, however, if she takes the matter into the Courts. 
After I have laid before her the positive proof I now 
have against her son she will probably take up her resi- 
dence abroad and this continent will see no more of either 
of them. 

Now in regard to Stephanie. You will soon realize 
after seeing her how her life in a luxurious modern hotel 
has unfitted her for plain living. Besides, I want her to 
have everything Katherine gave her and more too. If 

124 


LETTERS ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 125 

the case were taken into court they might leave the choice 
of guardians to the child herself, so I must give her some 
reason for choosing me — more new clothes, jewelry, 
Frauleins to wait on her, etc. Fd hate the thought of 
not providing for her as well as Katherine. She must 
have a maid and a German governess. I am sending 
under separate cover a lot of circulars and addresses of 
places to hire such people. Am sorry to put you to this 
extra trouble but think it safer at present for you to 
make these arrangements rather than I. You could run 
up to Philadelphia to meet the candidates and look them 
over. I have full confidence in your judgment (con- 
firmed since Tuesday by your choice of a chauffeur). 
You can quarter the governess at the hotel, can’t you? 
I don’t want to fill up your house but I mean to make it 
an advantage to you to take all this trouble. My idea 
is this — I think I expressed something of it the other 
day — You and Captain Aaron Price are to make your 
house thoroughly modern and comfortable and give up 
the boarders, hire extra help in your housekeeping and 
take things easy. That is how this affair is to work out 
for you. 

If it were not that the child is better off under your 
roof I would suggest settling her at a hotel. As it is, 
she must have a large room with a private bath. This 
may entail some rebuilding for you but if you don’t wish 
the arrangements to be permanent they can be torn out 
later. 

As long as the Countess stays in this country it is best 
to be somewhat on guard. She doesn’t know the child’s 
whereabouts now, but I wouldn’t trust her. You have 
followed my directions about the name, I suppose ? What 


126 


BLUE HERON COVE 


is she — Semiramis or Lady Hester Stanhope? Destroy 
all my letters and be careful about mentioning me down 
there. Caution that young man to keep his mouth shut. 
I guess he’s all right. I liked him. But Fve gotten out 
of the habit of trusting anybody. 

Be sure to write me fully about everything. If neces- 
sary I could meet you in Philadelphia to consult. In 
case the Countess sails I expect to go away on a friend’s 
yacht for eight weeks or so, having promised before 
all this came up. After that possibly I can run down 
to Blue Heron occasionally. 

Am inclosing New York draft for a thousand dollars. 
One reason for sending this, over and above what I 
handed you in Philadelphia, is that I want half of it 
spent for the child’s clothes and knick-knacks — jewelry 
or anything she expresses a wish for. You can get 
things by mail from the big stores here. Katherine had 
the impudence to say “ Where shall I have Stephanie’s 
belongings forwarded? She has never lacked for any- 
thing under my care.” I assured her that Stephanie 
would have no cause to complain in the future. 

Miss Janet, I am deeply in your debt but I shall hope 
to make it up to you fully. 

Please remember me with cordial greetings to Captain 
Aaron. 

Yours sincere^, 

Alan H. Rand. 

About that young man, Dan Smith, he would not 
accept anything for his services and that leaves me under 
an obligation to him. I hate obligations. Won’t you 
find some way in which I can settle it at once ? 


LETTERS ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 127 

Blue Heron, N. J., 

March 28th, 1914. 

Dear Mr. Alan: 

I am sending you your fur coat by express and you 
must have it tended to at once as a garment like that 
should not be exposed to moths, but tar and camphor 
will keep them out and only the odor which is some- 
times disagreeable to gentlemen and certain belong- 
ings in the pockets, viz. : cigars, etc., which I felt 
a delicacy in removing kept me from putting it on 
myself. 

But Mr. Alan, I must nerve myself to write you in 
a different strain, i.e., harshly. It is my duty and I will 
do it whatever the consequence though I hope you won’t 
take the dear child away from here as that would be a 
terrible punishment. 

I don’t like speaking harshly to you and scarcely know 
how I bring myself to it when I remember two young lads 
arm in arm along this beach and my young brother mak- 
ing all his plans for “ when A 1 gets here,” and you with 
your beautiful city clothes and handsome face leaping 
from the train and rushing at him as if you had scarcely 
been able to live apart. Why, it seems only yesterday. 
Such a willful, high-handed boy you were but generous 
and such a persuader — always getting me to cook just 
what you wanted, never willing to put on extra flannel 
undergarments no matter what the provocation, always 
interested in some young lady but preferring Steve to 
them all. 

Then you went to live in New York and we did not 
see you any more but, Mr. Alan, Steve never forgot you. 
Alas, after these recollections I must read over your 


128 BLUE HERON COVE 

letter again in order to brace myself to say those harsh 
words. 

I have now re-read your letter and feel sufficiently 
braced. 

Mr. Alan, I am shocked at that letter. It was no kind 
of a letter to write and that is no kind of a way to feel 
and you ought to be ashamed and I shall not do most 
of the things you asked and here’s your thousand dollars 
back and half of that you handed me in Philadelphia. 

There ! 

I knew something was wrong when I saw you in Phila- 
delphia but modern improvements and strange surround- 
ing throw my mind into such a whirl that I am not equal 
to anything. You said the child does not care for you. 
How could you expect it, Mr. Alan, when your only idea 
of pleasing her is with money, clothes, jewelry, and 
servants? Those are not the things to win a child. I 
have known a great many children and young folks and 
they always took to me and I think I do understand 
children. I understand your little daughter though she 
feels strange with me (not knowing whether I am nurse 
or governess) and what I do know is that love and 
play are necessary for children and apparently this little 
girl has had neither. Perhaps you blame this on her 
auntie and I am sure I don’t know what the lady can be 
thinking about but you are her father and here you pro- 
pose to go off and spend eight weeks on a yacht when 
trains are running every day to Blue Heron. Mr. Alan, 
do come here, and don’t send us any German ladies. If 
you will only let me teach her myself I will solemnly 
promise not to interfere with the dear child’s Teutonic 
forms of speech, if that is what you wish, even such 


LETTERS ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 129 

expressions as “ It gives in bathroom yet from towels 
nothing not/’ If that is the sentence construction of 
those races far be it from me to interfere with it, but 
German ladies in person I would prefer to do without. 
The circulars alarm me — so many talented persons out 
of employment! I wish I could accommodate them all. 
But not at Blue Heron for I really feel that would not 
be best. 

As to the house we have, as I told you, a nice bath- 
room and I bought a lovely set of bedroom crockery, all 
apple-blossoms, besides new bedding, mattress, and fur- 
niture for the dear child's room and believe me, she shall 
never lack for towels no matter what the boarders say. 
I always get extra colored girls to help in summer and 
father will not allow me to build over this house. 

Mr. Alan this little girl has eyebrows just like yours 
and if I were you I’d come right down to see her. 

I trust you will believe me always. 

Your friend and well-wisher, 

Janet Price. 

P.S. I almost omitted something else of a painful 
nature. Prepare your mind, Mr. Alan, for a shock. 

Your sweet little girl is known here by the name of 
Sadie Wienerwurst!! It is the fault principally of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad and at one time I was on the point 
of laying it directly before the general manager, for if 
they had only been a little more careful with their freight 
trains which cost no human lives so that I don’t feel any 
compunction for being annoyed she might have had a nice 
name. My choice was Evangeline Arethusa as a happy 
blending of poetry, fiction, and the vegetable kingdom. 


130 


BLUE HERON COVE 


The arethusa used to grow in the meadows at my 
mother’s down-east home and it smells like violets. But 
Sadie Wienerwurst! 

But I have just looked over your letter again. Per- 
haps you don’t even mind the name. 

Cap’n Price took his daughter’s letter and package and 
started across the tracks in the spring sunshine. The 
ocean was blue as ink, the bay was sapphire, and Cap’n 
Aaron’s eyes were a very bright blue in his handsome, 
hoary face. He delivered the package at the Adams 
Express building, and was headed for the post-office 
when he met Cap’n Bill Pharo. 

“ Sa-ay, Cap’n Aaron, they’s a feller over tew the 
station-house says he can beat you out at checkers.” 

It was a warm spring morning, enlivened with the 
sound of hammers that nailed shingles to storm-torn 
roofs, sledges that rang along the railroad tracks, and 
the rolling back of doors of boat-sheds down in the 
meadows. The ocean drummed cheerily, frogs shrieked 
from the ponds like girl graduates giving a college yell 

“ Now all together — 

Spring weather ! ” 

and to the leeward of the station-house was a wooden 
bench, smooth, sheltered, and warm, exactly the right 
height for supporting on the knees one end of a checker- 
board. 

Cap’n Price frowned across the bay and wondered 
what it was Janey had asked him to go to Bissell’s for. 

So the letter lay in his coat pocket, and four months 


LETTERS ABOUT THE NEW BOARDER 13 1 

later when he sorted over the wreckage there, it was 
found and quietly posted. 

Mr. Alan Rand was therefore somewhat puzzled to 
receive, two or three days after his man Boals had un- 
packed the fur coat and taken it to the hotel storage- 
room for summer keeping, the following letter from Miss 
Janet Price: 


Blue Heron, N. J. 

Dear Mr. Alan : 

Dry Scotch snuff, I should have said, instead of tar 
and camphor. 

But the unseemly sarcasm , coldness , and violence of 
my letter are what I chiefly regret. Do try to forgive 
me, Mr. Alan. I was all worked up. 

Be sure to bring heavy woolen garments and change 
at Cranberry Low Bottom and forget my harsh words, 
though I cannot take back all I said. 

Yours truly, 

Janet Price. 

Mr. Rand read this short note with surprise. Not 
only was he bewildered by its references to dry Scotch 
snuff but he had no idea what Miss Janet meant by sar- 
casm, violence, and harshness in a letter of hers. Indeed 
he could not remember her to have shown any of these 
traits at any time, and the words had no meaning for 
him. 

However he went out to dine with some entertaining 
friends and forgot all about the matter. 


CHAPTER XII 


DAN’S STORY 

Dan Smith sat on the upper veranda at Cap’n Price’s 
one evening, smoking. It was a warm evening of early 
April. He sat looking towards the bay but could hear 
the ocean thudding softly. He could hear voices over 
at Bissell’s store, frogs in the meadows, the creak of 
ropes down at the old wharf. Everybody else was either 
out or in bed and the house was quiet. The tide was 
going down and a smell of the bottom of the bay came 
in, dank and weedy. 

It was a peaceful hour but Dan Smith’s thoughts were 
stormy. He was having trouble with his men and that 
meant trouble at the office of the Morwood Construction 
Company in Philadelphia, which was building the cement 
pier at Montague Beach. Morwood Smith, the presi- 
dent, was his step-brother and Roger’s home was with 
him. Dan sometimes thought Morwood gave him the 
worst crew and a berth in an out-of-the-way place on 
purpose. If it had not been for his brother and Miss 
Janet Price he would have thrown up the job long ago. 
He might do it yet. It was almost impossible to get any 
work out of this crew; they were looking for trouble all 
the time. Let the Company find some one else to do 
their mean work — he’d shift for himself, get into a big 
scrap somewhere, down in Mexico or over across the 
132 


DAN’S STORY 


133 


ocean in the Balkan countries where there was always 
fighting. Only for Roger 

Some one came tip-toeing through the unlighted room 
behind him and he looked over his shoulder at a little 
figure in a dark toga, standing in the open door. 

“ Hullo ! What are you doing out of bed ? ” 

“ Please, I smell your smoke and come to find.” 

“ Don’t you know it’s late ? Boxer’s in bed and snor- 
ing long ago.” 

“ Yes, I hear him sleeping through the transom a long 
time.” 

“ Did that keep you awake ? ” 

“ No, Giant, but I remain awake from thoughts.” 

“ About what, for instance? What do you lie awake 
and worry over ? ” 

“ That is it — that is why I cannot sleep. I should 
worry.” 

Dan chuckled at this. 

“ You should worry — exactly, Highness. You should 
forget it. Why don’t you cheer up and enjoy yourself? 
Oh, yes, I know what goes on here, though I’m away at 
Montague all day. I know about a little girl that creeps 
back and forth all day between her room and this porch 
and never goes a step farther. All day to think and 
still you must lie awake to do it in bed ? And you’re in 
the south chamber now, in the nicest room and the big- 
gest, springiest bed in this house. What’s the trouble ? ” 

“ Giant, I don’t likes it here.” 

Dan rose and moved another big rocker up near his 
own. 

“ Highness, suppose you sit here — I’ll get the afghan 
— so. Wrap it round you good and commence about the 


134 


BLUE HERON COVE 


worries. What I specially want to know is why any girl 
shouldn’t like it here that has Miss Janet Price lying 
awake nights trying to please her.” 

Stephanie sat quite still. She could understand the 
giant better than most people because he talked so slow. 
It was almost two weeks since she came here and she had 
not grown used to anything. The only person she felt 
acquainted with was this same giant, but he was gone all 
day, away before she stirred in the morning, back to 
supper, but after supper she must go to bed. She sat on 
this veranda all day for no other purpose than to watch 
for him. She could make him out almost as far away 
as the pines. Sometimes he came up on the train unex- 
pectedly and he always waved his cap at her and shouted 
something friendly. This was the only pleasant thing 
that happened here. 

She began hesitatingly, not used to tell her troubles, 
but the story gathered strength as it went on. 

“ Giant, everything is here most strange and different. 
Clothes, even, and food are strange. At the Juilliard I 
have Gaston. He brings the breakfast into the school- 
room in a little cupboard of tin which has therein burn- 
ing coals. I have an orange, a roll, and a cocoa. I have 
never hammineggs. I have, by all meals, butter on a 
little dish, herself. No other person takes my butter. A 
napkin, yet, by all meals new and smooth. I don’t like 
napkins which are three days dirty. I don’t like food out 
thick, black pans, from great black stoves. It makes me 
an illness in my interior. And clothes — you think I wear 
as these clothes at the Juilliard? Such scratching 
clothes! Mein clothes are soft. I have frocks of lace 
and silk and a negligee so beautiful. It is the color of 


DAN’S STORY 


i35 


rose. Hannchen buttons them off me. She fills yet the 
bath. It is all my bath. There hang there no towels 
and sponges of others. Myself, I must turn the water 
here and it is tres difficile — while it runs so fast away 
without the cork. And sometimes beneath my toes is 
sand. Ugh! I am very lengthy with the bath from 
thinking of all the peculiarnesses.” 

“ Yes, we’re aware of that. It’s the only bathroom in 
the house, you know. But Highness, surely you don’t 
want any one else to wait on you when you have Miss 
Janet?” 

Stephanie wriggled beneath the afghan and was silent 
for a moment. 

“ I don’t know Miss Chanet,” she faltered. 

“ Don’t know her ? What do you mean ? ” 

“ I don’t know is she my maid or governess. She 
understands nothing of a maid. I must walk around the 
room and of myself find my things. The boots, the great 
heavy boots I now wear, I must myself tie, and that is 
so hard and tedious. I have not enough clean clothes. 
But is it for me to give orders? Perhaps she is my 
governess and should herself say ‘Listen!’ and ‘Non- 
sense ! ’ ‘ Who you think I am here ? ’ and all those 

unpolite things at me. Well, then where is my maid, 

which I always have ? But yet ” She was evidently 

selecting words to express her puzzlement. “ Miss 
Chanet she sews little presents on me — a pin-cushion 
resembling apples — a work-bag, has one cat embroid- 
ered — and as she offers these a look stands in her eyes 

of — kindness — and — and I may not describe, but 

Fraulein or Hannchen — it is not so in their 
eyes ever.” 


BLUE HERON COVE 


136 

The giant seemed to be turning things over in his 
mind. 

“ And Roger — you don’t like him either?” 

This was embarrassing. “ I think I don’t like boys, 
Giant,” she began evasively. “ I don’t got to like them. 
My Fraulein lets me hide when they come on the verandas 
at hotels. It is always just alike with boys. They speak 
too loud and the finger-nails are always schrechlich ” 

“ Those the only counts you have against Roger ? Out 
with ’em.” 

She muttered, “ By meal-times he laughs at me.” 

“ There’s something else too. Now isn’t there? What 
makes you act as if he had sump’m catchin’ when you 
pass in the hall ? ” 

“ I don’t like he lends me any more books.” 

The giant suppressed an odd sound. “ Ha ! That’s 
it, is it? Well, I don’t think he will. It was a pretty 
stiff dose for you that day. Let me see — there’s nobody 
left but Cap’n, besides me. You don’t care for Cap’n 
especially? ” 

“ He names me Mrs. What-for-thing and makes Roger 
laugh.” 

After a moment the giant said soberly, “ Of course I 
know it’s a great change here from what you were used 
to in New York. I knew all about that when I first 
looked at you there at the corner of Fifty-xth Street. 
You say you had a governess and a maid besides the 
regular service of the hotel. Spiffy clothes and swell 
meals. Everything you wanted by pressing a button or 
mentioning it in the telephone. And you didn’t go to 
school, did you, but had private teachers? And when 
you went out you were wrapped up in furs in a big closed 


DAN’S STORY 


i37 


car and somebody with you, governess or maid, that gave 
directions to the chauffeur through a speaking tube. Oh, 
I’ve seen the likes of you in more cities than one and 
from several different angles. But, Highness, what I 
wonder, from what you’ve said and the little that Miss 
Janet told me and from my own observation — was it 
much fun there? Did you have a lot of fun in your 
fine New York hotel? ” 

Stephanie stopped rocking. Across her mind passed a 
procession of tedious mornings and dreary afternoons, 
which she had lately forgotten. “ Having fun ” — that 
very expression she had picked up from a group of chil- 
dren in the park and had even written down in the lost 
journal. 

“ N-no, not any fun.” 

“ Perhaps, though, you were awfully fond of the 
people you lived with — your aunt, wasn’t it? And the 
governess ? Did you love her much ? ” 

She waggled her head slowly from one shoulder to the 
other. “ No, I love them not any. Tante is so hard and 
cross and Fraulein always talks of Vaterland. Hann- 
chen too is cross if I but rumple my frock a little. Gaston 
is good but I cannot see him much and Sadie in the park 
I have only once beheld.” 

“ There wasn’t any one in New York then that you 
liked very much ? ” 

" Mein Herr Vater, only,” she answered shyly. 

“ Oh, your father?” 

“ Yes, truly. I have him most like of all the world.” 

The giant said, “ Miss Janet didn’t tell me much but 
she did mention that your father used to come down and 
stay here long ago. Did you know that ? ” 


138 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ I don’t understand. Was he a little boy? ” 

" I don’t know anything about it. I only know that 
Miss Janet must have set her eyes by him. That day in 
Philadelphia when she sent me after you she said in a 
kind of hushed voice, ‘ It’s Mr. Alan Rand’s little girl.’ 
Might have been * the Angel Gabriel’s little girl,’ the way 
she spoke it. Now I take it that your father thinks very 
highly of Miss Janet, or he never would have sent you 
here.” He broke off to ask, “ Are you warm, High- 
ness? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Don’t you feel sleepy enough to go to bed now ? ” 
“ Aber no, Giant. I am so full awake. Here is much 
nicer as my bed.” 

“ Miss Janet’s over at Tonkins’ helping with their sick 
baby and Cap’n and Roger are both asleep, so that’s why 
we’ve got this deck to ourselves. Hear those frogs! 
Highness, I’ve a good mind to tell you a story about my- 
self — something I hardly ever do. Roger, even, doesn’t 
know this one, all of it — I hate so to rake it up. But I 
was thinking, perhaps, it’s the right dope for both you 
and me to-night. Would you like to hear a story? ” 

“ Yes, Giant.” 

“ Let me see, how old are you ? ” 

“ I have elefen years.” 

“ Well, when I was thirteen I ran away from home. 
You see I had step-brothers and sisters older — my father 
was much older than my mother — and they used to plague 
me and I used to torment them. We’re not entirely over 
it yet. This Morwood Smith I work for, head of the 
Forbes and Smith Construction Company in Philadel- 
phia, is my step-brother. Well, they used to tell on me 


DAN’S STORY 


139 


and I got sore about it and one day there was a big 
rumpus about some mischief I had done and I ran away 
from home. 

“ Do you get me ? Do I use words you don’t savvy ? 
It was like this — carrying a couple of shirts and a pop- 
gun (I was as small a kid as that) and some crackers 
and cheese and about two dollars, I slipped out of my 
father’s and mother’s house, caught on a freight train 
and went out West. I never came back home again for 
six years ! 

“ Don’t think but what I wanted to. Six years — I’m 
not going to tell you about those six years. There’s 
a lot of it I’ve tried to forget entirely. It made me old 
and it made me wise — as a street kid must be old and 
wise. I slept anywhere, ate bad food, had no friends. 
But after awhile I was lucky in getting a job in a machine 
shop — I was always crazy over machinery, and I stuck 
to it and learned a great deal, and I attended night- 
school all that time. Afterwards got a better job as 
assistant to a master mechanic. That was when I was 
seventeen. It was out on the West Coast. 

“ My father spent far more than he could afford trying 
to trace me but those first two years I wasn’t traceable. 
He and my mother broke down, grieving. I started 
home twice; once my money was stolen and the other 
time I stopped to nurse a fellow that broke his leg — he’d 
been good to me. I was nineteen before I came East. 
Then I couldn’t make up niy mind to go at once to our 
town and I came down to Atlantic City and got a job as 
lineman on one of the piers there. 

One day they sent from one of the hotels for a man 
to make repairs for a broken current and I went. While 


140 


BLUE HERON COVE 


I was working right by the desk in the public office, a 
man came in leading by the hand a little boy. I saw 
them the minute they came in that lobby. He had a grip 
in his hand — had just come from the train — and he 
signed the register directly under my eyes as I was 
working : 


“ ‘ Morwood Smith 
Brother / 

“ Yes, it was my step-brother, Morwood Smith, though 
he had changed and raised a beard. But the little chap ? 
Brother? I couldn’t take my eyes from them and after I 
had finished the job I hung around until they came down- 
stairs again. 

“ They stayed three days and I gave up everything to 
watch them. It was the little boy that got me crazy. I 
thought about him all day and dreamed of him at night. 
The third day when they came out of the hotel with grip 
and umbrella, bound for the train, I followed them and 
when they had taken their seats I screwed up my cour- 
age and walked in beside them in the car. 

“ ‘ Morwood,’ I said, £ I’m Dan.’ 

“ His expression didn’t change. He’s got a clammy 
way of not letting out what he knows. Perhaps he’d 
already spotted me, dogging them around in the crowds. 
But I only cared to know one thing 

“ I asked him, ‘ Morwood, who’s that little boy ? ’ 

“ Then he told me. It was my little brother born after 
I left home.” 

The narrator leaned forward and knocked his pipe 


DAN’S STORY 


141 

empty against the balustrade and remained with his elbow 
on the railing bent forward staring into the dusk. 

“ My mother was dead and father didn’t live very long 
after that. He made Morwood give me a job and he 
provided for Roger’s schooling. Mother had left a 
letter to me saying that Roger was her bequest to me : — 
If I ever came back she wished I would make him my 
special care. But Morwood is fond of him, I think, in 
his peculiar way and after father’s death he arranged for 
Roger to live with him. My other step-brother and 
sisters were all married. I boarded around by myself 
and did my work and pretty soon got a slight raise. 
Morwood’s always finding fault and hates me for one 
reason and another, chiefly for my size, I guess, as he’s 
a small sliver, but I rather think he finds me useful in 
the business. One day he called me into the office and 
said I was to go down to a place called Blue Heron on 
the Jersey coast to get ready to lay cement sidewalks. 
I’d never heard of Blue Heron and cement sidewalks 
didn’t appeal to me very much and any way I liked to 
be in town where I could see the kid — he’d taken a 
wonderful shine to me from the very first. But it didn’t 
do any good to argue. I was elected to lay sidewalks 
at Blue Heron. 

“ Well, I got here in March, Highness, same as you, 
and in a storm. It was snowing so I couldn’t see the bay 
as we came across, and blowing, and the surf roared, and 
this place looked like the world’s end. I got off out there 
by the track and stood, not knowing where to go. Hadn’t 
brought any men with me as I had merely come to look 
things over and I couldn’t see as there was any village 
here to speak of. A man came along and I asked him 


142 


BLUE HERON COVE 


where I could spend the night. He said the hotel wasn't 
open but perhaps they’d take me in at Price’s. 

“ I found this house and knocked at the door and it 
was opened by a little bit of a woman with nice kind eyes. 
Before I had more than half-explained myself she 
caught sight of my feet and began at me, very worried : 

“ ‘ You haven’t any rubbers on and your feet are wet. 
Don’t you know that snow is very penetrating? Come 
right in and change. I’m afraid you’ve taken cold 
already,’ and so forth and so on. You know how Miss 
Janet does. But if you haven’t had any one to care 
whether your feet were wet or not in years it sounds 
kind of good. 

“ They took me in and she and Cap’n couldn’t do 
enough for me. You know Cap’n’s son died and they 
say I resemble him. By and by I was glad when the 
Company kept assigning me to work down here, for it 
seemed like home. And then Miss Janet did something 
for me; she got Morwood to let me have Roger here in 
his vacations. I don’t know how she ever did it, timid 
as she is, but once her sympathies are aroused she can 
nerve herself up to anything. She went up to town one 
day and what she said to Brother Morwood I don’t know 
but now I have Boxer here with me whenever he is not 
at school. 

“ That’s the kind of friend Miss Janet’s been to me. 

“ Now listen : — three weeks ago I went up to town to 
get a gang to start work on the pier. They told me at 
the office Miss Janet Price had been there and left word 
for me to come up at once where she was staying. When 
I saw her face I concluded Cap’n had got back the money 
that was stolen from him long ago. (They need money 


DAN’S STORY 


H3 


now on account of the trouble the Land Company is 
making for ’em.) But no, the news she had to spring 
on me was this, 

“ ‘ Mr. Alan’s little girl is coming to stay 
with us ! ’ 

“ And she looked at me as if she thought the thing 
would topple me right over. 

“ ‘ Who’s he ? ’ I said. Then she sobered down and 
told me that twenty-five years ago a young fellow, a boy 
in his teens, had stayed at this house and his name was 
Alan Rand. He and her brother Steve were pals and 
evidently they all looked upon him as something wonder- 
ful, way ahead of the rest of human kind. And now his 
little girl was to be entrusted to her care. 

“ Then she told me I had been appointed to the honor 
of going after this Royal Highness. I was to take a 
trip to New York and there get further orders about 
bringing her down through Jersey. You know the rest 
about that. 

“ Well now, it’s most time for Miss Janet to get back 
from Tonkins’ and if she finds me keepin’ you up with 
this seven-night’s entertainment I’ll hear some plain 
truths spoken, for once. 

“ About Boxer, I’m disappointed you don’t get on with 
him. He’s got a lot of book notions, like this craze over 
pirates, but otherwise he’s all right. Boys are not girls, 
you know, and they’re not interested in acting ladylike. 
But it don’t hurt boys to play with girls and when I first 
saw you and that night as we came along down to- 
gether I thought to myself, this will be fine for Boxer to 
have this kind of a little Highness to play with. He 
hasn’t any mother or own sisters or any woman belong- 


i 4 4 BLUE HERON COVE 

ing to him. He and Morwood live like two owls up 
there in town. 

“ So, as I say, I’m disappointed, but if you’re afraid 
he’ll shock you and muss things up too much — I don’t 
see but what you’ll have to keep on shunning him. 

“ Cap’n Price is an old man, Highness. He’s been a 
brave man and saved many a life from the surf along 
this coast, which is made dangerous by sandbars. But 
trouble and disappointment came along and some cogs 
in his brain got out of gear; however he’s a good deal 
sharper than you think sometimes and is a mighty fine 
old fellow. 

“ Now about Miss Janet — well, I won’t point any more 
morals except to say again, she’s the best friend I’ve got 
and I wouldn’t wonder if she was yours too. 

“ It would be fine if you came to like Blue Heron. 
When you came out to-night I was thinking uneasy 
thoughts. You see I’ve been foot-loose once and that’s 
a hard habit to cure altogether. But, bless you, in the 
bottom of my heart I know Blue Heron is the spot I 
like the best in all the world, because it’s more like home. 

“ Now good night, little Highness, and you’ll jump 
right into bed after this, won’t you ? I don’t know as I 
ever spoke so long at one spiel before. Are you cold ? ” 

“ No, Giant.” She took hold of his big hand and tried 
to express herself. “ It was a such nice story. I under- 
stand. It is good we tell so much on each other.” She 
was reminded of her first confidante. “ Giant, you never 
find that journal of my life, no? ” 

“ No, Highness. I remembered and shook the car 
good next day but it wasn’t there. Now cut along to 
bed.” 


DAN’S STORY 


145 


When Miss Janet came in from the neighbor’s she 
thought she heard some one calling her. Yes, it was a 
voice from the south chamber where for two weeks her 
new guest had held aloof, looking at her when she came 
to help her with eyes like some proud wild animal that 
is being tended with services that are awkward and 
unwelcome. 

“ Miss Chanet.” 

“ What is it, Dear?” 

When she came beside the bed she was astonished to 
receive a kiss on her hand. 

“ Miss Chanet, I understand yet. You are one friend 
of mine and not a Fraulein.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE OLD SAFE : — CHART NUMBER ONE 

It was not so easy to make up with Roger. 

Every morning at breakfast Miss Janet said something 
like this : 

“ Why don’t you two dear children plan some pleasant 
pastimes together? I think, Roger, our little newcomer 
would like you to show her where to gather shells.” 

Whereupon Stephanie would look embarrassed and 
Roger exceedingly glum. 

And every night Dan would speak to Roger. 

“ What makes you shy off from Her Highness so? 
She won’t bite you.” 

“ I don’t shy off. But I’ve got things more important 
than girls and shells — things that if she tried she might 
get her feet wet or step in the sand or something.” 

“ But you ought to show her the ropes a little. Teach 
her to fish off the dock. I’ll lend you my rod. Or get 
the Susan into the water. I’ll help you. She ought to 
learn to handle a boat.” 

“ Yes, and she might take a notion to pitch it through 
a stove-pipe hole,” said Roger bitterly. 

Stephanie, when Miss Janet urged her to make friends 
with Roger, said, ruefully: 

“ Roger lieber not be a friend wiz me. He turns the 
back at me when I go near.” 

So everybody gave up the attempt. Stephanie after 
i4e 


THE OLD SAFE: CHART NUMBER ONE 147 

an hour or two of lessons hung about the house forlornly. 

She grew to like the lessons. There was an old geog- 
raphy in which somebody had painted all the scenery red 
and purple and put moustaches and bonnets on the “ Ani- 
mals of North America.” And she and Miss Janet had 
funny times understanding each other. 

“ What is a decimal, my dear ? ” 

“ Please, Miss Chanet, it is this way: — You have a 
fracture and ein Punkt sits by him, next each other, and 
he is decimal.” 

“No doubt you are right, dear child, and your poor 
auntie had some good reason for imparting these Teu- 
tonic ideas which I have promised your papa not to inter- 
fere with for the present, but at the same time I must 
urge you to think of decimals as expressions of tenths, 
hundredths, and thousandths.” 

One morning Stephanie spoke of something she had 
been thinking of ever since Dan's story on the veranda. 

“ Miss Chanet, you like my Herr Vater, yes? ” 

“ Dear me, child, of course I do ! Why, I knew him 
when he was only a few years older than Roger, with 
brown cheeks and a blue cap, and always asking for pie.” 

“ So ! A cap ? Continue more, Miss Chanet. I love 
to hear.” 

“ Of course you do. I told him so,” cried Miss Janet, 
beaming. “ I knew you were interested in your papa.” 
And she related on the spot as many stories as she had 
time for, all beginning, “ When Mr. Alan was here with 
my brother Steve.” 

It was a wonderful thing to find some one that loved 
to talk of the person she had always been snubbed for 
mentioning, her secretly idolized father. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


148 

“ Miss Chanet,” she said, twisting a corner of that 
lady’s apron as she was gathering up the books to go 
away. 

“ Yes, love.” 

“ When — when — you have Herr Vater so fond, would 
it be polite You think I am too bold?” she inter- 

rupted herself. 

“ Go on, my dear.” 

“ To write a letter, imploring he shall come here once 
again. Tell him you have here that same place he came 
long ago when that blue cap he wore, and you like him to 
come, and Cap’n Price, and tell him his daughter Ste- 
phanie, even, she likes it. Is it polite to write such 
letters? ” 

“ It is not only polite, dear love, but I have written 
inviting him. I didn’t say that you wished it as I did 
not know it then. You must tell him all about that when 
he comes.” 

Stephanie began to clap her hands. “ He comes then ! 
He comes soon! ” 

“ I hope so. He hasn’t answered yet and I think that 
must mean yes. At any rate he has written nothing to 
the contrary.” 

“ I hope, then, he never writes to her,” said Stephanie, 
thinking the contrary must mean Fraulein. 

Miss Janet was overjoyed. She went about saying to 
herself, “ The dear child adores him. What a wonderful 
— what a delightful surprise for Mr. Alan when he 
comes ! ” 

She watched every mail for the letter she expected 
which would say that he had set a near date for his visit. 
She even dropped him an extra postcard: 


THE OLD SAFE: CHART NUMBER ONE 149 

“ Weather lovely. Trains running on time. Charm- 
ing surprise in store for you. When do you come ? ” 

Nevertheless day after day went by and brought no 
letter from New York. 

The lessons lasted only an hour or two as Miss Janet 
had much work to do. Stephanie was left sitting, a 
lady of leisure, in the parlor or veranda upstairs. Which 
was lonely and dull. 

One morning Miss Janet could not stop for a single 
story as she had to go on the train to Montague Beach. 

Stephanie looked at the cabinet of shells but she had 
seen these already many times; she went out on the 
gallery but it was raining a little and fog hung so close 
that even the big pines could not be seen. Then she read 
two books Miss Janet had left for her, called Christmas 
Blossoms and The Juvenile Keepsake . They slid off 
from her lap and she found herself thinking of the pirate 
books. If she had them here she could cover over the 
dreadful portions with her hand while she looked up that 
part about gold bars and diamond crosses buried in the 
ground. Aunt Katherine had a large diamond cross 
locked up with many other pretty things in velvet cases 
in a little safe. She herself had had in New York a 
pearl necklace, pins, locket, and a watch. She had not 
cared much for them. But it would be interesting to find 
such things in the ground. She thought if she had some 
kind of a shovel and if it were not raining and if Cap’n 
Price were nowhere around she might go downstairs and 
step off the veranda and dig a little. 

This idea took her, at any rate, down to the lower 
porch. She had scarcely walked the length of it before. 
It extended around the closed-up part that had been a 


150 


BLUE HERON COVE 


store. There were four shuttered windows and, facing 
toward the bay, big double doors with a faded sign over 
them, “ Price’s General Store and Market.” Each side 
of these doors was glass covered with newspapers. 

No diamond crosses were in sight, even when you came 
as near the ground as this. She walked all around and 
looked closely. At the far side of the house one of the 
wooden shutters had blown open and in some curiosity 
as to what a store at Blue Heron might be like she pressed 
her face to the glass to look in. 

She was very much surprised to see Roger get up 
from the floor in there. He knocked on the inside of the 
window and shouted: 

“ Go round and come in if you want to.” 

Seeing she didn’t understand he disappeared and pres- 
ently hailed her from the corner of the house. 

“ The way you get in is through the pantry ; I’ll show 
you. Cap’n’s over at the station-house playing checkers.” 

They went around the porch to the entry door and 
he led her through the kitchen and a long pantry into a 
great shadowy room with dim objects pushed against the 
walls. 

“ This is the old store they use for a dining-room in 
summer. Where I’m investigating is over here in the 
post-offlce part. I don’t mind if you sit on that stool 
and watch me. Miss Janet asked me to sorta look after 
you while she went to town but I hadn’t gotten round 
to it yet. You see what I’m engaged in is so interesting 
it makes me rather absent-minded.” 

He seated himself on the floor in front of an old safe. 
Stephanie climbed upon the stool he had pointed to and 
sat there with folded hands. 


THE OLD SAFE: CHART NUMBER ONE 15 1 

Once this had been Cap’n Aaron Price’s store, with 
storerooms back of it and his home above it, reached by a 
diagonal flight of stairs outside the south wall. Now, in 
spite of other changes, it was still the old store. Each 
side the front doors were glass show windows. An eight- 
foot butcher’s block stood at the back of the room near 
the door to the meat-safe. All the walls were lined with 
shelves. One corner had been the post-office, fenced off 
by a counter supporting an arrangement of private boxes 
with names inked over them, A. NUMMY, T. J. NEW- 
BOLD, W. CRAMMER. In the end of this alcove 
stood the safe which Roger was examining. 

It contained tall books and loose papers and bundles 
of small papers. Roger took them out one by one and 
examined every leaf. From time to time he glanced out 
of the corner of his eye at his companion. It is possible 
that he put on some extra flourishes, and frowned, and 
muttered over the papers because she was there. 

“ I suppose you wonder what I’m doing ? ” he remarked 
at last. 

“ Yes, sir,” said Stephanie politely. Miss Janet had 
told her to answer the Cap’n thus. 

“ Well, I’d tell you — only for one thing.” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ What you did to those books I lent you. It was a 
mean way to act when I was trying to make things pleas- 
ant, and besides, those books are valuable; you can’t buy 
any more like ’em.” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ What struck you anyway ? ” 

Stephanie opened her eyes wide. 

“ No one has struck me any.” 


152 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ I didn’t mean that. But why did you fire those books 
I lent you through the hole in the wall?” 

“ Oh — that ? Please, it is the pictures which give me 
a nervousness. It is a picture of Mr. Blackbeard without 
his body. Something seized me that I must lose those 
pictures or get nervous exceedingly. Also — I climbed 
and I pushed and they fell beyond the wall. It is not 
very polite on the books and I beg them to apolo- 
gize.” 

“ Beg the books to apologize! You say things funny. 
Some of the time I can’t hardly understand you and I 
don’t believe the people in Blue Heron village could at 
all. That would be a great advantage if I should decide 
to tell you things. You’d be safe. Well, it’s all right 
about the books now you’ve explained. You see I do 

hate to have my things spoiled Dan calls me old 

maid sometimes. Those pictures are pretty stiff, for a 
girl. I guess you don’t know much about pirates, do 
you? Did you ever read Treasure Island f You didn't! 
Why, I thought everybody had read that. I’ll have to 
help your education along. Well, if you read even the 
preface of the Pirates' Own Book it tells about buried 
treasure — money and stuff they hid in the ground ? ” 

Stephanie brightened. “ Yes, sir. A diamond cross. 
But I could not see it in the sand.” 

“ In the sand ? ” 

“ I walk the veranda quite around to find it.” 

“The veranda! You didn’t expect to see a diamond 
cross lying on top of the ground near the porch ! Why, 
you poor snip, the pirates chose the most unlikely place 
they could find, where it was lonesome and wild. Then 
they dug a deep well. In Novia Scotia there’s treasure 


THE OLD SAFE: CHART NUMBER ONE 153 

buried a hundred feet deep and nobody can get it out 
’cause the pirates made tunnels to let in the ocean in 
case anybody went to fooling with their loot. I see 
you’re awfully uninformed. Listen. What you have to 
do is to find a chart . A chart is sometimes on paper but 
generally on parchment, which is kind of leathery. We 
wouldn’t find a parchment one, probably, but only a copy, 
that’s been passed from hand to hand and then laid neg- 
lected for years. And they’s a map on it or a sort of 
plan, and somewhere in the plan one spot, peculiarly 
marked with crosses, and that’s where the treasure is 
buried. Do you understand? ” 

“ Yes, sir.” Stephanie sat leaning forward, looking 
down at him solemnly, with folded hands and her toes 
together on a round of the high stool. 

“ Well then, the first thing I want to know is : — Can 
you hold your mouth shut ? ” 

Slowly with questioning eyes upon his face she raised 
her hands and took a good pinch on her lips. “ So ? ” 
“ Oh, shucks!” giggled Roger. “You are a circus! 
I mean can you keep a secret? Not tell? ” 

“ Not tell. Ach, yes ! I understand not-tell and can 
do it perfectly.” 

“ All right then.” And Roger told her his great secret. 
“ I’m looking for a pirate chart myself.” 

Stephanie stared at him, duly impressed. 

“ Don’t you remember I told you I’d studied up this 
subject in the public library in real histories? This isn’t 
just nut-work. Pirates were all through Jersey. They 
came down from South Amboy, because they could bring 
their stuff in there without paying duty, and they came 
up from Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay. Of course 


154 


BLUE HERON COVE 


they brought their treasure along — but hunting for buried 
treasure along this coast doesn’t seem to have occurred to 
anybody, only me. When I found I was going to spend 
the spring and summer here with Dan I just decided to 
make buried treasure my principal business. And I’ve 
quietly looked around and made a few mild inquiries, but 
no living person remembers any pirates, except they all 
say there’s an old fellow over on the mainland called 
Pirate Pinneo. I intend to look him up some day. But 
everybody agrees the oldest settlers on this island were 
Prices and Newbolds, and Cap’n Bill Pharo says he 
reckons Cap’n Aaron must have some terrible ancient 
records in this house. That’s why I’m going through 
this safe. 

“ I asked Cap’n, could I look in it, being interested to 
see what the inside of a safe was like anyway. And he 
said ‘ Sure/ there wasn’t anything in this one but the 
store books and old bills. But Cap’n’s memory isn’t very 
good, you know, and there’s no telling what may be here. 
Now do you want to help?” 

Stephanie nodded gravely. 

“ Good. ’Cause if we find the treasure do you know 
what I’m going to do with it ? I’m going to give most all 
of it to my brother Dan to give him a course at the 
University of Pennsylvania.” 

He explained further: “He’s had lots of hard luck, 
Dan has, and awfully few chances. But if he had a 
course in engineering he could get some big jobs, he’s 
so clever. Brother Morwood won’t give him the money 
for it. So it’s up to me. Wouldn’t you like to find it 
for Dan?” 

" Ach, yes ! I like to find for him something schon” 


THE OLD SAFE: CHART NUMBER ONE 155 

“ I thought you would. Well, then, that’s settled. 
Let’s shake hands. That means we’re partners in this 
through thick and thin. Now get down off that stool.” 

He cleared a place for her on the floor. 

“ I’m very systematic and always see things through 
to a finish. I look at every separate scrap. Now you 
take those I hand you and do them up into bundles 
again.” 

Outside, the rain drizzled steadily and fog hung over 
land and water. In here they turned over many yellow 
papers which proved to be only bills and lists and agree- 
ments concerning lumber, lard, calico, kerosene, clams, 
fish-hooks, wallpaper, seamen’s coats, butter, eggs, canned 
corn, rubber boots. And yet Stephanie felt that she had 
never spent a pleasanter morning. She helped, and Roger 
treated her confidentially, and he explained things she 
had never heard of before, and he promised to show 
her round the beach, teach her to sail, swim, crab, and 
fish, and take her down to Montague where Dan was 
building the pier. 

“ And I tell you what, Sadie : — It’s evident you haven’t 
read the proper kind of books. When we’re round to- 
gether I’ll tell you the stories from all the best ones I’ve 
read.” 

Without knowing how it happened they had become 
fine friends. 

However, the bundles of papers and the books were 
all stacked up between them at last and the safe stood 
bare. Roger opened the two little drawers and the small 
door above and found nothing. 

“ Pshaw ! I did hope this was the place.” 

At one side the metal lining had sprung away from the 


156 BLUE HERON COVE 

wall of the safe a little. Stephanie pried at it with her 
finger-nail. 

“ You don’t look yet in here.” 

“Oh, that’s just part of the wall of the safe torn 
loose.” 



“ There is aber a paper there, inside — a blue paper.” 
Roger applied his finger-nails and drew out of the 
space a dusty, crackly sheet, white on one side, faded blue 
on the other, with lines marked in white on the blue. 

“ Say, this is a map. Look here. It says ‘ Big Bonet 
Island ’ and ‘ Little Islands ’ and 4 West Thurifare.’ 
Here’s the ocean. Here’s the big pines, spelled ‘ Pins.’ 



THE OLD SAFE: CHART NUMBER ONE 157 

And it’s measured off — From Iron Stake thirty-five 
cheans to ye Black Oke and forty-two cheans to ‘Ye 
Sprus over against a Cedar Swamp/ It’s a kind of chart 

You don’t suppose Sadie, look at this! A tiny 

square with a red cross on it and letters each side — P 
and N.” Roger’s voice sank to a tone almost of 
solemnity. 

“ You think ” began Stephanie, frowning over the 

old paper and trying to co-ordinate all she had heard that 
morning. 

“ I think it’s just what we’re hunting for. I think that 
little square’s the treasure! Hooray! Sadie, you’re a 
jim-dandy and we’ll begin the search ere another sun has 
set — that is, to-morrow, if the rain clears off and I can 
get hold of Cap’n’s tools.” He scanned the paper for a 
long moment and finally held it out with his finger on 
the significant spot. ‘ I’ve been trying to think what 
those letters stand for, and now I’ve got it — pearls and 
nuggets 


CHAPTER XIV 


FIRST EXPEDITION 

At the supper-table Dan was surprised to catch his 
brother making signs to the new boarder. He made dig- 
ging motions with his fork and then screwed one eye shut 
and drew up a corner of his mouth, evidently to express 
some pleasant mutual understanding. The giant laughed 
to himself and wondered how the frost had thawed. 

Miss Janet was even more surprised when, right after 
breakfast next morning, Roger appeared before her and 
said: 

“ Please, Miss Janet, it’s a corking day and couldn’t 
Sadie get off from lessons to do something awfully inter- 
esting, she and I have planned? ” 

There was Stephanie too, bashful but eager. 

Miss Janet got as far as, “ Why, I thought ” 

But being a wise person she only said, “ Certainly. I 
think she needs a holiday. But remember, Roger, she 
isn’t accustomed to hard play and exercise.” 

“ Yes’m.” 

A few minutes later she saw them setting off along the 
gravel road and if the rate at which the two pairs of 
feet twinkled over the ground was any sign, they cer- 
tainly had some interesting goal in view. 

“ For all the world like two sandpipers on the beach,” 
said Miss Janet, watching their feet. “ Now how did 
they make friends so quickly ? ” 

158 


FIRST EXPEDITION 


i59 


She saw them next on Grassy Point just above the 
village and later from an upper window made out two 
figures down by the surf dragging heavy objects, pacing, 
stooping, waving to each other, and transferring articles 
from place to place. 

By dinner-time they had reached Duck Point which 
wades out toward Little Islands a half-mile south of the 
Cap’n’s. She had to blow the dinner horn to get them 
home. 

They came in after every one was seated. Dan hap- 
pened to be there for dinner too. Both the youngsters 
had red faces, sparkling eyes, and they seemed greatly 
preoccupied. 

Roger said, “ Yes, Cap’n,” “ No, Miss Janet/’ “ Dan, 
please pass the salt,” but only to the person across the 
table did he address anything more confidential : 

“ Good luck, wasn’t it, Sadie, we struck the B.P. out 
on G.P.? ” 

Sadie dimpled and grew scarlet at being thus singled 
out. 

“ You know — that old stump of a B.P. we have to 
measure from ? ” 

She nodded. 

“ Better yet if the S. turns up on the other P; Be- 
cause then, you know, all we have to do is to take that 
place on the surf and divide the line in half and there’s 
the very spot to d. for the a-hem.” 

“ Miss Janet,” said Dan, “ don’t you think when you 
cut the A.P. it would be a good thing to leave out S.W. 
and R.S. for fear of an a-hem?” 

Miss Janet, who had been serving the food, now took 
her first good look at her young charge. 


i6o 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“My dear love! You are all mussed up and your 
nose is burned! You must lie right down after dinner 
and let me put cold cream on your face and darken the 
room while you take a little nap.” 

“Oh, Miss Janet!” 

Two pairs of cheeks caved in with disappointment. 

“ Miss Janet, she can’t. She and I are occupied with 
something important out toward the Newbold tract. It 
takes two to do it and Sadie’s getting to be quite a help.” 

“ What’s that about Newbolds’ ? ” spoke up Cap’n 
Aaron. 

“ They mustn’t go on the Newbold land, especially now 
Daniel has his men quartered there. Roger, you mustn’t 
take this little girl down there.” 

“ Boxer has his orders about that already,” said Dan. 

“ Well, we’re only just near the edge and you know, 
Dan, nobody knows where the edge really is.” 

“ Sh! ” said Miss Janet; Dan gave his brother a look, 
and Roger glanced £t Cap’n Price and subsided. 

Miss Janet after dinner asked Dan’s advice about let- 
ting the new boarder go out again and he said, as the 
youngsters stood listening : 

“ Yes, I think it’s all right. Pleasant weather, isn’t it, 
after the recent frost.” He pretended to shiver, which 
made them laugh. Then he said to Roger emphatically, 
“ Remember, don’t go near the bunkhouse.” 

That afternoon Cap’n Price turned the whole place up- 
side down. Something had called to mind a certain set 
of instruments he owned and a certain problem in which 
they figured. It was a matter his daughter wished him 
to forget because his efforts had been in vain and had 
only made him restless and excitable with thoughts of old 


FIRST EXPEDITION 


161 


wrongs. But something had reminded him to-day and 
he could be heard tumbling things around in the shed and 
talking to himself. 

Miss Janet herself was much inconvenienced in not 
being able to find her coal shovel. 

At four o’clock Stephanie sat on the peak of a sand- 
hill from which she could see almost the whole island and 
the waters on each side of it. Roger had posted her 
there as a sort of flagstaff. The sand dunes lie between 
the flat beach and the bluffs, which slope down to the 
meadows. Thus Stephanie on her ridge, served as a 
landmark to both sides. 

This was the first time she had had a good look at 
her new world. 

North and south as far as eye could see rolled hills 
like the one she was throned upon, melting together in 
the distance. On one side of them the dazzling beach 
and cobalt sea, on the other bluffs covered with bayberry, 
dark myrtle green, sloping to salt meadows, which in turn 
thrust grassy tongues into the blue bay. Strips of 
marshy islands streaked the bay and a low gray margin 
far away was the Mainland. She sat facing the bay. 
Here at her right Blue Heron Village was strung out 
between a water-tank on four stilts and the Life Saving 
Station flag on three-stilts-and-a-pole. The Life Saving 
Station was the nearest building, and Cap’n Price’s house 
with a few old willow trees around it was down this 
way from the village, nearer the bay and the dock. 

To the south lay a tract of unsettled land rolling away 
in tall thickets of bayberry brush and moss-covered hum- 
mock and hollow. At some distance stood a clump of 
tall old pines, dead and brown at their tops. They clus- 


BLUE HERON COVE 


162 

tered round a house, bare and gray except where a patch 
of the wall had been painted a darker color. Past this 
she could trace the railroad tracks and the auto boulevard 
to where, way beyond, a spectral city glimmered in the 
lower sky, a real city, Roger said — Montague Beach 
where Dan went every day to build the pier. 

She could see Roger over on the point. Beyond him, 
this side of some little green islands in the bay, a sail 
was threading its way. For boats were out. It was 
now May and the boat-sheds stood empty of the mysteri- 
ous great cocoons which had lain within all winter. 
These had spread their wings over the water: — sloops, 
yachts (catboats), sharpies, skiffs, sneakboxes, garveys, 
bank-skiffs. The chug of motor engines was heard upon 
the bay and soon many houseboats would moor them- 
selves along the meadow shore. Stephanie knew nothing 
yet of boats. But she saw the world spread out before 
her, blue and white and green; the little sail so near 
land it seemed almost to be skimming through the grass; 
Roger, her new friend, who would call to her soon to 
come and help him in this not-understood but absorbing 
matter they were working at together. 

A brisk salt breeze bent the grasses around her all one 
way. She was sitting on the sand and didn't care if it 
got on her frock. She ran her fingers down into the 
cool, white stuff and liked the feel of it. 

Above the mainland and the bay a delicate cloud spread 
up the sky like a white aigrette floating there. 

“ I have never know the world is schon like this,” she 
whispered to a passing breeze. 

And the Herr Vater might arrive here any day! 

Roger gave a shout and waved his arms triumphantly. 


FIRST EXPEDITION 163 

She knew what it meant : — he had found another stump. 
Nothing pleased him so much as finding stumps. 

She had found one this morning on Grassy Point, in 
fact had sat down upon it, and was much surprised when 
Roger declared it was the very thing they were looking 
for — the landmark indicated in the chart as “Ye Black 
Oke. ,, 

Then they had skirted across the north end of the 
village to the beach, where Roger had the previous 
evening hidden some instruments in a wreck. There 
she hung her hat on a stake that stood upright in the 
ground and lo ! she had discovered something else. 

“ Sadie, you're some mascot," Roger had declared. 

After figuring with a pencil he dragged out the instru- 
ments and began the hard task that occupied their morn- 
ing. Nobody disturbed them. Roger said Blue Heron 
Village was used to seeing him do queer things. 

He had borrowed from Cap’n Price’s tool-house a 
great assortment of articles: — There was a kind of tele- 
scope attached to a brass disk and three legs to stand it 
on; there was a long chain with iron pins to fasten it 
down; rods, twine, a tape line; a long-handled spade and 
Miss Janet’s coal-scoop. 

“ These are surveying things. I don’t know why Cap’n 
has them. He keeps ’em in the shed but never uses ’em. 
I know how. Dan showed me.’’ 

Perhaps Roger didn’t know as much as he appeared 
to, but it made a great impression on his new partner 
when he squinted through the telescope. 

They spent the morning dragging the chain along the 
beach. At length he said they had measured enough and 
he drove in a stake. They went back once more to the 


BLUE HERON COVE 


164 

bay shore to look for “ Ye Sprus ” and were called in 
to dinner. 

Before he folded the map to put it in his pocket Roger 
pointed to the mark N □ P and rapped it with his 
finger. 

“ Nothing more to do except find that spruce stump, 
get a straight line to our stake, divide the distance, meas- 
ure it off and dig.” 

They hid the instruments in a clump of bushes while 
they went to dinner. 

No wonder Stephanie appeared sunburned and 
rumpled at that meal. She had trudged in the soft 
beach sand for hours and had followed Roger cross 
lots through swamps and brush. Her shoes had filled 
up with sand and had needed to be emptied. Her frock 
was torn, her ribbon lost. And she didn’t care ! 

Once when they sat down to rest on a timber facing 
the ocean she had said : 

“ We’re having fun , yes? ” 

“ Bet your life,” said Roger. 

And now at four o’clock Roger had found 
the other stump and was beckoning to her to come and 
help. 

It seemed, however, that measuring across the island 
was another matter than the open beach. Here were the 
railroad and the gravel road to cross with ditches on each 
side of them and then “ the mash ” and then thickets, 
vines, and hummocks. The chain hitched itself to roots 
and formed a permanent attachment for branches and 
hauled half the island along with it. 

“ Oh, what’s the use? I’m going to pace it off.” 

By good luck, therefore, assuredly not good guidance, 


FIRST EXPEDITION 


165 

a certain spot was picked, more because the sand had 
there been smoothly scraped by freakish winds into a 
perfect bowl, pure white, round which the gnarled bay- 
berry copse grew close. 

The interlopers stood at its brink pressing the 
branches behind them with their hands. The sun was 
getting lower and had left this dell. Its rays coppered 
the opposite bushes at their tops. 

Roger said, “ This must be the place.” 

“ What you think is here ? ” whispered Stephanie. 
Even now she did not wholly understand, though Roger 
had coached her on many things all day. 

“ I don’t know. We’ll dig and see.” 

He went for the spade and shovel and they stepped 
down into the middle of the bowl and struck into its 
smooth surface. 

“ Ouch, Sadie ! Please don’t throw sand into my eye. 
Toss it up on the bank there. S’matter with you, any- 
way ? Hurt yourself ? ” 

“ I go only to make a small chop and it hits me by 
the leg.” 

“ You hold it like a soup-spoon, that’s why. Grab it 
like this.” 

Down they went through fine dry sand, which poured 
back continually around their feet, to hard-packed, heavy 
stuff, and below that it was coarse and damp. Roger 
fixed some branches against the sides to hold them up, 
making a sort of well in which they crouched and tossed 
sand up against the sky. 

Stephanie was covered with sand. It was in her eye- 
brows, on her cheeks and upper lip, behind her ears, and 
down her neck. Her sweater, skirt, and hair were full 


166 BLUE HERON COVE 

of it. She took bits of it from her tongue with a gritty 
finger-tip. 

“ Is it much down deeper, you think ? ” 

“ Can’t tell. It may not be straight down. We ought 
to dig a trench fifteen or twenty feet long before we give 
up hope.” 

His partner sighed heavily. 

“ It is almost evening now.” 

“ Yes, but don’t stop yet. I’m always very thorough.” 

And just then, as he placed his foot to give a mighty 
push, the spade grated against something hard. 

“ What’s this ! ” He thrust in here and there and each 
time they heard a clinking sound. He dropped on his 
knees and went at the place furiously with his hands. 
Stephanie, seeing his excitement, fell to pawing also. 

A moment later they had uncovered a smooth gray 
oblong. 

Roger, crouching, brushed it off and felt around the 
edges. 

“ It’s stone ! ” He stared at his companion. “ I 
never heard of a treasure chest of stone.” 

They managed at length to scrape down around the 
side enough to show the nature of their find. So deep 
in the ground that the sand they took out moistened the 
palms of their hands, leaning a little sideways, stood a 
slab of gray stone with letters carved on it. 

“ P,” read Roger. “ And N. Do you know what this 
is, Sadie ? ” 

“ No.” 

“ It’s a gravestone.” 

“ A gravestone ? As by cemeteries ? ” Through her 
mind there flashed a vision of beautiful Woodlawn where 


FIRST EXPEDITION 


167 

they had motored sometimes. She glanced around at the 
sandy dell and the gnarled high bushes above it, now full 
of black shadows. “ But who would bury persons 
here? ” 

“ Pirates would. Tell you what I think, Sadie. 
There’s treasure somewhere under here, or near, but — 
there’s skeletons too.” 

Her eyes opened wide at him. 

“Yes, I didn’t tell you about that for fear you’d get 
nervous and of course I didn’t know what we’d strike. 
But when they buried treasure they most always buried 
a bunch of people along with it. They thought their 
ghosts would keep other folks from getting at the treas- 
ure. And queer things have happened too. Men would 
go some lonesome place where they had reason to think 
pirate stuff was hidden and just as they stuck their spades 
into the ground strange noises would begin ” 

Roger broke off suddenly and at the same moment his 
companion’s fingers closed tight upon his sleeve. 

“ Hark!” 

The sounds they heard were of some one breaking a 
way softly through the brush behind them. 


CHAPTER XVi 


FIRST FIND 

The first thing Roger and Stephanie did was to 
scramble out of the little dell into the bushes. But they 
did not go far for there is nothing like bayberry brush 
and the dry brown leaves and twigs that fall from it, 
to produce crackling noises. They crouched in a thicket 
and dared to go no farther. Stephanie would have floun- 
dered to her feet and crashed right on but Roger held her 
by the tail of her sweater. 

Some one was standing at the opposite side of their 
hollow. A pair of boots and the edge of overalls were 
visible but they could see nothing more from their posi- 
tion under the bushes. For several minutes the boots 
stayed planted in the same spot, then they stepped down 
into the hollow. 

Roger swallowed an exclamation. It was Cap’n Price 
who was bending over what they had uncovered. He 
was muttering sounds of astonishment. 

He had turned his back toward them and stood motion- 
less. Stephanie was afraid of Cap’n at all times and 
Roger had a real reason for feeling nervous. There on 
the sand lay Cap’n’s new spade, his fifty-yard tape line 
and Miss Janet’s shovel, and back in the bushes was his 
surveying apparatus. It was all very well to rely on 
Cap’n’s forgetfulness and borrow his things if they could 
be returned quietly, but Cap’n Price had a stern way at 
168 


FIRST FIND 


169 

times and then you remembered that he had once been 
the head man of all these parts and as captain of the life- 
saving crew had held a record for swift action. 

The map at any rate was not out there. Roger moved 
his arm to find if it was still under the front of his 
sweater. This disturbed his balance and he fell over in 
the crackling brush. 

“ Who's there ? ” said Cap’n sharply. 

He wheeled around and thrust aside the branches. 
Roger crawled out. He had brown leaves and prickers 
sticking to his sweater everywhere and there were twigs 
in his hair. 

“ Rawger, is it ? ” The Cap’n bent his fierce old eagle 
face upon him and caught him by the shoulder. “ How 
came ye to uncover this ? ” 

“ W-w-we dug.” 

“ So I judged. But how’d you get soundings ? How’d 
you lay your course just here?” 

“ W-w-we measured.” 

“Yes, I saw my surveyor's outfit back there; you 
gather those together and I’ll see you about that later. 
But, young man, by what chart did you lay your course ? 
It was no accident that located this monument that’s been 
lost for fifty year.” 

Cap'n Price spoke rationally and with stern authority. 
Roger drew out the blue map. 

“ Cap’n, we found this map.” 

“ Where’d you find this ? ” shouted the Cap’n after one 
close look at it. 

“ In the old safe in the store.” 

And then nothing more happened for the Cap’n strode 
off with the map in his hand. 


170 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Come on, Sadie. I guess we better pick things up 
and go.” 

Shadows deepened over the gray stone leaning awry 
in the hollow. So it was a monument? A monument 
that Cap’n Price knew about and seemed disturbed at 
their finding. In their hearts they knew that they had 
scarcely expected to find anything and were half- 
pretending all the time. And here they had un- 
earthed some grown-up secret hidden in the heart of the 
bluff. 

Roger had run up the slope to look around. He 
exclaimed : 

“ There’s a whole lot of people coming out here 1 ” 

He began to gather up their things hurriedly. 

" Let’s get away. Maybe we’ve done something 
against the law.” 

Many persons were certainly headed this way. In fact 
the whole village seemed to be straggling along the 
road and striking off into the bushes toward their 
excavation. 

From a sandhill they saw Cap’n Price coming across- 
lots with Cap’n Bill Pharo and Cap’n Israel Nummy. 
Mr. Bissell, the storekeeper, and the crowd of men who 
occupied a bench every evening in front of his store; 
Miss Janet and several women; the village boys: — all 
were on the way. And there was Dan turning off to 
join them. His sharp eyes made out two figures on a 
distant rise and he waved his hand but kept right on 
with the crowd. 

So they turned back and found themselves on the edge 
of the group around their hollow. But they could not get 
any explanation till Miss Janet caught sight of them and 


FIRST FIND 


171 

was instantly reminded that she had left biscuits in the 
oven. 

They followed her, asking questions, and she stopped 
to help them collect the tripod and chain, and as they 
went, explained about the gray stone in the bluff. 

“ It’s the old marker that shows the true boundary 
line between our land and the Newbolds’ ! ” 

“ But Cap’n said it was a monument/’ said Roger. 

“ So it is. They call it the old stone monument and 
it stands for a vast deal of trouble.” 

Sixty-five years ago two lads whose fathers owned 
large tracts of Blue Heron Beach, lived neighbors there 
and were boon companions. They owned a boat to- 
gether which they sailed across the bay to attend school 
on the mainland. They grew up and shipped before the 
mast on the same vessel, the Cape May Belle. Then one 
of them left the sea and turned home to set up a store 
in the growing village, marry, become post-master, cap- 
tain of the life-saving crew, and a leading man along 
shore. The other followed the sea for twenty years 
more. By this time, being no spender, he had saved up 
money, and having married, he too came back to Blue 
Heron to settle down. 

His friend, Aaron Price, had been running two sloops 
between Great Swallow Bay and northern ports, carrying 
oysters, fish, and clams. But this extra line of business 
was more than he could handle and he was trying to 
dispose of these two boats, the Lizzie M. and the Garland , 
just at the time that his old chum, Tom Newbold, came 
looking for an investment for his savings. 

The two old friends got together in the store to talk 
j+ over. And lo! they were boy friends no longer but 


172 


BLUE HERON COVE 


one the shrewd storekeeper and the other an old crank 
of a seafaring man who had brought home from his 
voyages chronic bilious complaint and a stingy dis- 
position. 

They quarreled over the purchase money, Cap’n New- 
bold claiming that the Lizzie M. was seam-sprung. He 
brought over to the store two bags of money, some of it 
in coins he had hoarded in a stocking on his voyages. 
The sum fell short of Cap’n Price’s estimate on the two 
vessels and they had another dispute. Cap’n Price said 
he would take what was offered as part payment. 

On her first voyage under the new ownership the 
Lizzie M. foundered in a gale off Sandy Hook and not 
being insured was a total loss. Cap’n Newbold stormed 
into Price’s store that night, beside himself over this dis- 
aster, and demanded his money back, said Cap’n Price 
had cheated him. Cap’n Price was called away in the 
midst of this tirade, leaving the complainant alone in the 
store. A day later he went to his safe : — the money bags 
were gone. 

There was damaging evidence against Cap’n Newbold. 
Cap’n Price, when he stowed away the money, had ex- 
hibited to him his new safe. He rarely used the com- 
bination on the outside door, but locked an inner door 
and hung up the key behind the safe. Cap’n Newbold 
had watched him do this after he put the money bags 
inside. 

The case was never tried in court but it was tried 
every day of the year on the store porch, also on the 
store porches of Tippville, Grassy Run, Cranberry Low 
Bottom, and every village along shore. Some took one 
side, some another. Between accuser and accused a 


FIRST FIND 


i73 


bitter quarrel grew. Cap’n Price had not a doubt that 
Newbold took the money; Cap’n Newbold declared that 
Cap’n Price had first sold him an unsound boat and then 
sought to damage his reputation. 

Cap’n Newbold’s side was powerful enough to get a 
rival store established and its owner appointed post- 
master in place of Cap’n Aaron Price. Blue Heron was 
a thriving village then, Montague Beach was not yet built. 
About that time Cap’n Price lost his wife. The final 
blow came several years later when his own son died from 
an injury on the dock which many believed might have 
been prevented by Cap’n Thomas Newbold. 

Meanwhile everything had fed their quarrel. Not a 
cow wandered over the line, not a clam was taken from 
the neighboring waters but became an author of bad 
feeling. 

The worst of it was nobody knew where the boundary 
line really lay. The old map was lost. Both men had 
heard that a stone monument had been set up at the first 
survey but it could not be located. First Price had a 
new survey made, then Newbold. Then they took to 
measuring and driving stakes themselves. The line 
finally set by a surveyor from Cape May disagreed with 
Cap’n Price’s measurements and gave the advantage to 
the other property. 

It was now ten years since Thomas Newbold died and 
his family moved away, carrying the feud with them. 
They had never sold the land as there was some dispute 
about their title. Dan Smith had his men quartered in 
the old weatherbeaten house. 

Much of this story Miss Janet told on the way home 
that night and the rest of it they learned at other times. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


2 74 

By some miracle of chance, certainly not by scientific 
calculation, they had uncovered the ancient landmark, 
vagrant winds having prepared the way by scooping out 
a hollow just above it. Of course they had had the 
map to go by. 

After supper the old man called Roger into his room 
to question him. Dan was there already, discussing with 
Cap’n the great event. 

“ Now, Rawger, what I want to know is, what was 
your personal interest in finding the old marker. 
’Twould have seemed natural if you found, overhauling 
the old safe, a map like that ’ere that you’d report it, 
instead of privateering round measurin’ off the land 
yourself.” 

Cap’n spoke evenly but in a tone that meant business. 
Moreover, Dan sat there silently waiting for the answer. 

“ Cap’n, we — I — didn’t know what kind of map it was. 
I thought it meant something else.” 

“ You laid your course by it with the aid of my tele- 
scope and line.” 

“ Yes, and I’m sorry, Cap’n, about the tools. I won’t 
take anything out like that again. I’ll — I’ll save up and 
pay if anything got damaged.” 

“ There was no damage to speak of,” said the Cap’n, 
his mouth relaxing slightly. “ ’T would be amply cov- 
ered by the salvage anyway. But you say you didn’t 
know what kind of map it was or what importance — and 
yet you got your bearings from it and headed straight 
for the spot indicated on the paper here by a square and 
cross and initials of the interested parties, Price and New- 
bold. What did you figure them two letters stood for ? ” 

Roger stood by the table fiddling with a piece of bees- 


FIRST FIND 


175 


wax Cap’n always kept there in a basket of sewing tackle. 
He stuck the scissors into it and gouged holes, impaled 
it on the point and held it near the lamp causing it to melt 
and give forth strange odors. His brother reached over 
and seized the offending lump. 

“ Why don’t you answer the Cap’n?” 

“ Pearls,” mumbled Roger. “ And — er — nuggets.” 

“ What!” 

“ We — I — thought the letters stood for — hem ! — pearls 
and nuggets.” 

“ You better speak a little louder, Rawger. Sometimes 
I run several points off my course ’count of having the 
wrong ear turned. Now what was it that ye said? ” 

Roger’s face was a fine red in the glow of the lamp. 
He saw that he must go into explanations. 

“ Why, Cap’n, it was like this : — I — we — I — thought 
the map was to show where there was treasure buried. 
You know — by — by — pirates.” 

“ By who ? ” 

" Pirates . " 

Cap’n looked round at Dan and then simultaneously 
they both burst out laughing. 

Dan laughed the more heartily because he was glad 
to see his old friend relax from the strain of this day’s 
work. Cap’n Price had been talking excitedly with many 
neighbors and reiterating one assertion : — “ This proves 
it. Tom Newbold pried open that safe and stowed the 
map there when he took my money.” 

Roger stood waiting for them to get through laughing 
and he looked very sulky. 

“ Dan can laugh all he wants to but there did use to 
be pirates here.” 


BLUE HERON COVE 


176 

“ Now, Rawger, don’t ye go to feeling crabbed. I’ve 
heard lots of pirate yarns spun in the fo’c’s’le and there 
used to be books about ’em here in my cab’net. I expect 
those bucks cruised all up and down this shore in my 
grandfather’s time. Maybe they put into Swallow Bay. 
They might’ve. On’y I never heerd of it. Never heerd 
of ary pirate round these parts ’cept this old chap they 
call Pirate Pinneo, on Crooked Point. Phin Pinneo, he 
used to was, when he lived below here on Boremus Beach 
’n then some summer boarder, I guess, named him pirate, 
’count of some yarns they was afloat. He’d steal fish- 
hooks. He wouldn’t had spine enough to take sinkers 
too. So I always told him. But he’s all the pirate we 
got around here now.” 

Roger’s face did not clear up. 

“ Psho, boy. I only questioned you to find out what 
started you on that there hunt. I knew it was just one 
of your notions swashin’ round. And look here.” The 
Cap’n spoke in real earnest. “ I’ve been meaning to tell 
you; it’s a wonderful good turn you’ve done me to-day. 
That map’s been lost for forty year. Ef ’twas ’mongst 
my papers here I didn’t know it — though others may 
have. But however. You was the clever chap that 
found it. And you located the monneyment, which sur- 
veyors from Cape May or Philadelphy even with the map 
might have took two or three weeks and run up a bill 
of three hundred dollars and not found it then. Don’t 
grunt, Dannie. I’ve had my own experience with these 
fresh-water engineers. Roger, you’re a smart boy for 
all your notions and I owe you a debt and there’s my 
hand on it.” 

This turn of the conversation made Roger feel dif- 


FIRST FIND 


177 


ferent. Smiling and gratified he shook hands with the 
Cap’n. Then he bethought him of his partner, whom 
he had loyally kept out of the matter as long as only 
blame and ridicule were passing round. 

“ You know, Cap’n, it wasn’t only me found the map 
or located the treas — I mean the marker. Sadie helped 
me. In fact, Sadie was the one that first spied the map.” 

“ Sadie ? ” asked the Cap’n. 

“ Yes, Sadie Wienerwurst, you know, that lives here.” 

“ Where is she?” 

“ Sadie,” called Roger. 

This evening the new boarder had lingered down- 
stairs after supper and had even asked Miss Janet hesi- 
tatingly to let her help with a dish-towel. She hated to 
go to bed. Everything began to seem different and 
to-day she was really in things here. 

She put down the towel and went to the door of 
Cap’n’s room. 

“ Here she is. Here’s Sadie.” 

“ Come here, child,” said Cap’n Price. 

He waited until she had come quite close to his chair 
and then he took her by the hand and looked at her long 
and earnestly. 

“ What is it Rawger says your name is? ” 

“ S-s-sadie Wienerwurst,” said Stephanie trembling. 

But the old Cap’n only patted her hand and looked at 
her questioningly. 

“You mightily resemble some one I know — a fine, 
handsome boy — fine lads, they both was then. He ain’t 
been back just lately, not as I recollect — a good shot, he 
is. But he never answered to no such name as that 
’ere.” 


BLUE HERON COVE 


178 

Dan was sitting facing the kitchen door. Miss Janet, 
he saw, had stopped what she was doing to listen to this 
conversation. At the Cap’n’s last speech he saw her sud- 
denly put down the dish she held and hide her face in her 
apron. 

He went out to her. “ What’s the matter, Miss Janet? 
Has the fuss over the old trouble been too much for 
you ? ” 

“ No, it isn’t that. It’s this letter. Neddie Bissell 
handed it in just after supper.” 

Surety and Trust Company 
New York 

13/4/14- 

Miss Janet Price, 

Blue Heron, New Jersey. 

Dear Madam : 

I am writing at request of Mr. Alan Rand who sailed 
yesterday on board yacht Harpoon , owned by Mr. Mor- 
timer Van Vorst, for a cruise in sub-arctic waters. 
Though the trip had been planned for some time the day 
of sailing was hastened by weather conditions and as 
Mr. Rand’s preparations were hurried he asked me to 
drop a line to you. He wished me to tell you that 
matters in which you are particularly interested are satis- 
factorily settled. There will be no further interference. 
He begs you to apply at this office for funds needed or 
any other help. Letters to him will be forwarded by us. 
He hopes to see you on his return which will be in about 
six or eight weeks. 

Yours very truly, 

Frank C. Goodrich. 


FIRST FIND 


179 


“ Only yesterday I wrote another card telling him 
Stephanie wanted him to come and not to forget woolen 
socks,” faltered Miss Janet. “ He hasn’t answered half 
my letters. He doesn’t seem to care about the child at 
all.” 

“ She thinks a heap of him.” 

“ Yes, and he doesn’t know that. I wanted him to 
come and find it out. Sub-arctic regions — I do hope he 
has not been led to take an interest in the North Pole.” 
Miss Janet bit her lip and folded the letter away in heavy 
disappointment. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE TRUNK IN THE KITCHEN ATTIC 

Roger had his boat, the Susan R., in the water and his 
first officer, Sadie W., in the stern and was teaching one 
to sail the other on a fine morning in the latter days of 
May. 

The Susan R . was a sneakbox. A sneakbox is a tiny, 
boat, all deck except a little square hatch amidships. In 
this hatch the voyagers sit with their heads and shoul- 
ders sticking up like tulips in a window garden. If you 
choose to row there are wooden thwarts each side. If 
you choose to sail, a mast with a sail rolled up on it 
is lying on the deck, a rudder with ropes in the hold, 
and you handily reach over from your seat and set them 
in place without rising. A sneakbox is used by gunners 
to hide in the sedge and shoot ducks from. Being all 
deck it is probably the safest small craft afloat and it 
draws so little water it can sail almost on dry land. The 
Susan R. was not new but she was entirely seaworthy. 
Dan had bought it for his brother at second hand. 

Up and down close to Grassy and Duck Points and 
in and out among the Little Islands flitted the Susan’s 
microscopic sail but not outside in the deep channels yet 
because of certain conditions laid down by Miss Janet 
Price, as follows : 

They were not to sail beyond Little Islands till the mate 
had learned to swim. 

180 


THE TRUNK IN THE KITCHEN ATTIC 181 


They might not go out in a naw-east, naw-east by east, 
east, sou’-east by east, or sou’-east wind. 

Said mate must wear a life-preserver. It was tied on 
outside her middy blouse to-day, a strait-jacket of canvas 
with vertical strips of cork stitched into it and tapes in 
front and was the kind Price’s store used to keep for 
sale. In it the wearer found free motion difficult, espe- 
cially the act of sitting down. 

“But I learn well, in spite of all? Yes?” She 
anxiously inquired. 

“ Fair, for a girl. A little more to loo’ard now. 
Loo’ard ! We want to make that point on the next tack.” 

“ I know ‘ loo’ard.’ You haf no need to shout. I 
know tack and sprit and gaff and tiller and sheet. I 
know yacht and sloop and skiff and power-boat and 
garvey and old mud-scow. I know the face of a crab 
swimming by the dock and minnow and eel and channel 
and high tide and breeches-buoy and snapping-turtle. I 
know bilge-water.” 

“ Oh, you’ll do, time you learn to swim. Then us for 
the deep water before the boarders come.” 

“ Are they then very bad ? ” 

“ Bad ? They’re the worst you ever heard of. 
There’s an old red-nosed gink from Trenton that spreads 
a handkerchief over his face and takes a nap on the 
veranda outside my room every afternoon. There’s a 
lady from Philadelphia that has a little table in the 
dining-room by herself for fear she might have to speak 
to somebody that lives north of Market Street. And an 
old cat, Mrs. Piffington, from Paterson. And the Brad- 
shaw family from Camden — five kids all under nine and 
red-haired. The largest boy is eight. Well, the way 


i 82 


BLUE HERON COVE 


he sticks to me ! He’s a goose. Every minute or so he 
says to hi§ mother, ‘ Mah-mah ! What day is this ? Is 
it to-day or is it to-morrow ? ’ Whatta you know about 
that ? They’ve got a baby now, that’ll probably get hold 
of things and put ’em in its mouth. And you can’t get 
away from ’em to save your life.” 

“ In my room I could go.” 

“ ’Twouldn’t do a bit of good. Those kids’ll chase 
right after you. No, the only escape for us is this old 
Susan and then put the big channel between us and them.” 

Stephanie had not half recounted the sum of her new 
acquirements. 

She knew how to climb off the slippery rafters of the 
dock and drop into the Susan just as the boat swung 
round. She could bale with an old tin can and swab down 
the decks with a gritty bit of sponge. She could step the 
mast and set the rudder and be ready in her place when 
Roger cast off and shouted “ Let her go ! ” She knew 
the way out of Heron Cove between the Point and the 
boats anchored nearby. Cap’n Bill Pharo’s Wagtail and 
the Ada belonging to young Benjamin Nummy were the 
finest yachts (catboats), and there were all sorts besides. 
She knew them each by name and could have told you 
that a scrap of white a mile away was Si Scupper’s skiff 
bound for Punkin Run or that a distant chug-chug came 
from Bissell’s motor out in the beach channel. 

Already she had learned what the edge of the bay 
looked like at low tide, skirting it barefoot with a crab- 
net over her shoulder. The points stood high and dry, 
all rippled, greenish sand, dented with puddles full of 
eelgrass and black snail-shells. At water’s edge an eel- 
grass forest sheltered the water creatures in its close 


THE TRUNK IN THE KITCHEN ATTIC 183 

arcades. The black mud oozed between her toes and 
she liked it. She was afraid of nothing along shore but 
the spotted toadfish with his wide, wide mouth and ugly 
eyes. 

She knew the surf too, the white sands dotted with 
broken shells and clots of sea grass; the green breakers, 
curling, thumping, breaking in a mass of foam which 
rushed and hissed along the beach ; the looks of different 
kinds of ships that rode on its blue breast. There had 
been days warm and calm enough for her first swimming 
lessons, when Dan routed them out in the early morning 
and coaxed her into waves lovely with pink sunrise light. 

She was acquainted with the life-saving crew, called 
them “ Jake ” and “ Perry ” and could tell Miss Janet 
that they were going to have fish chowder for supper at 
the station-house. She knew when Mrs. Bill Pharo was 
frying doughnuts and she dared press her nose against 
that stout friend’s kitchen screen provided Roger was 
along to do the talking, for Miss Janet had told him she 
didn’t want Sadie to answer questions about her former 
home. 

She knew Mr. Ed Bissell, the storekeeper, old Cap’n 
Israel Nummy, Hosy Tonkins, the Pharos, the Cram- 
mers, and what relation they were to each other. She 
knew how soon the so-called hotel would open, who 
owned the little shut-up cottages. She knew what kind 
of candy and gum you could get at Bissell’s. She knew 
when trains were due. She had been to Montague Beach. 

The people of Blue Heron village were used now to 
her and had accepted her as “ that new girl tew Cap’n 
Aaron’s that talks funny and is kinda bashful.” 

Stephanie was “ up ” in another new line : — She was 


BLUE HERON COVE 


184 

making oral acquaintance with a great variety of boy’s 
stories, especially those of pirates, they being Roger’s 
specialty. He was keeping his promise to “ help her 
education along.” 

And so New York, the Juilliard, the Frauleins, Tante, 
became dim things of the past. Only of Herr Vater she 
thought daily, in the first hours of waking and at nights 
after the lamp was out. Her thoughts were sad with 
disappointment now for Miss Janet had broken the news 
as gently as she could. 

“ Your papa won’t come as soon as we hoped, dear. 
He’s gone on a trip.” 

Stephanie’s face grew long. She knew what that 
meant far better than Miss Janet. Had there not been 
weeks and months in New York when Herr Vater did 
not visit the Juilliard because he was away on a trip, 
yachting or traveling? 

“ Yes, it will be very long before he come,” she said 
woefully. 

However, she was not thinking of this in the Susan R . 
this sparkling morning. 

They could see all their part of the island — the houses, 
the roads, the uncleared tract. 

“ I say ! There goes Cap’n with two more fellows 
from the city out to see our stone. They must have 
gotten off the 10.15.” 

“ How much persons is that, Roger, who come to 
see? ” 

“ Let me think.” Roger counted on his fingers. 
“ There was the justice of the peace and another man 
from Montague and that lawyer and two fellows from 
the Land Company and two men that the Newbolds sent 


THE TRUNK IN THE KITCHEN ATTIC 185 

and a surveyor from Cape May and this makes ten. 
Besides everybody in Cranberry County, more’n I can 
count. All to see what we dug up with our little 
shovels. ,, 

“ It was hard — the digging,” said Stephanie reminis- 
cently. 

“ Yes, and some job to measure. Good joke on the 
surveyors that Cap’n had before that a chap like me went 
out and struck the spot first time.” 

“ Yes, we measure well, exceedingly. And then we 
find that sandy place and you say, 4 This must be the 
spot/ ” 

“ My ! wasn’t I excited though, when my spade grated 
on something hard ? ” 

“ We uncover all the sand from him quick and you 
say, ‘ It is a monument/ And Cap’n that night is very 
please.” 

“ ’Course he is when it gives him forty feet of land 
and proves he was right about the boundary. I tell you 
we did Cap’n Price one good turn.” 

This dialogue goes to show that the finders of the old 
landmark had become somewhat conceited and compla- 
cent over that day’s work. 

“ But, Sadie,” went on Roger, turning to look farther 
downshore toward the big pines. 44 What I want now 
and what we set out for in the first place is to do as 
good a turn to Dan.” 

44 Indeed, I like to turn my giant most well of all,” 
declared the mate earnestly. 

“ Yes, because look here : — Dan’s worried about some- 
thing now. He gets letters from Brother Morwood that 
make him blue and grouchy. It’s some fuss about the 


i86 


BLUE HERON COVE 


work here and this crew. They’re a bad lot, anarchists 
or something, and some way they make trouble for Dan 
up at the office, pass the word they aren’t treated right, 
and the work isn’t going well, and they don’t like their 
quarters — at the old Newbold place, you know, that sort 
of rickety-looking gray house by the pines, with front 
door painted blue. The thing is, I heard Dan tell Miss 
Janet, they want to be down at Montague near the hotels 
and saloons. Sunday he heard some of ’em had been 
making a rumpus in town and he went down there and 
never got back till after midnight. I wouldn’t go to 
sleep till he came in — sat up and read. My, but I was 
glad to hear him tramp along the porch ! ” 

“ They dare not hurt Dan ? ” 

“ Might, or he might hurt them and get in wrong 
about it. You see one trouble with my brother Dan is, 
he’s such a whale for strength. He’ll go to gently push 
a fellow, maybe, and first thing he knows he’s knocked 
him down and broke his nose. Then when Morwood 
hears of it he says Dan meant to do it and there’s a 
row. Brother Morwood’s suspicious of everybody, 
thinks they’re going to trick him. He’s always watching 
out for Dan to do something because — I don’t know as 
you ever heard? Dan ran away once when he was a 
boy?” 

“ Yes, I know,” said Stephanie, looking the other way. 
Her big friend’s story that evening on the gallery, had 
impressed her so deeply that she didn’t want to talk 
about it. 

“ Do you ? I’ve scarcely heard all about it myself. 
But d’you know what I think sometimes? Morwood 
said before we came down here that if there were any 


THE TRUNK IN THE KITCHEN ATTIC 187 

rows or trouble this time he and Dan would part. That 
would mean I couldn't be with him either. And if Mor- 
wood fired him do you know what I’m afraid Dan would 
do ? Run away again ” 

Roger looked very troubled over this secret dread of 
his. 

“ And so I do wish we could turn up something that 
would help Dan and fix him independent. It seems as 
if we might. Look what we found already and how im- 
portant it was. Well, we examined everything in that 
old safe. Where else could we look?” 

The mate thought awhile. “ In the Admiral Benbow 
Hotel it is in a chest upstairs they find things.” 

Only last week she had heard this story with pro- 
found interest. 

“ Well, there ain’t any chests at Price’s. Wait 
though ! There are a lot of trunks in the kitchen attic 
along with junk out of the old store. And some of the 
trunks have things in left behind by boarders, long-time- 
ago boarders that came here to shoot ducks. May- 
be — Sadie, don’t say another word but come about 
on the next tack and head for home. I’ve got a 
thought.” 

That night Miss Janet said to the giant: 

“ Daniel, your brother is certainly developing wonder- 
fully of late. He left his play to-day and followed me 
about with offers of assistance, I suppose because he saw 
I was extra busy preparing for the boarders. It is a 
pleasure to see the dear boy’s character shaping itself so 
nobly.” 

“ Or else he’s got an ax to grind,” laughed the Big 
Boss. 


188 BLUE HERON COVE 

Miss Janet did not think to mention some puzzling 
questions the helpful lad had asked. 

“ Miss Janet, you never had a fellow staying here that 
drank and swore constantly and seemed to have a secret 
on his mind, did you? ” 

“ Merciful heavens, Roger ! We would not allow such 
characters inside our doors, not for one night even,” 
the good lady cried. 

“ Well, he might not have drank so much but kept off 
by himself and acted mysterious and went out snooping 
in the bushes sometimes.” 

“ Not that I recollect, my dear.” 

“ But — wasn’t there any boarder that dropped dead in 
a way nobody understood, leaving all his things behind 
in a chest or something ? ” 

“ My dear Roger ! What ideas you do have in your 
head! None of our boarders ever died, though some 
are particularly injudicious in their appetite for seafood. 
If you mean gunners, they go out on the point, or in 
boats, and not in the bushes. There is, however, in the 
kitchen attic an old trunk full of things they’ve left be- 
hind at one time or another. I always notified the 
parties but generally they were old hats or boots and they 
said keep them till they came next time. Some of the 
articles have been there for years.” 

“ Miss Janet, you wouldn’t mind if I sort of looked 
over that trunk, would you ? ” 

“ Certainly not. It’s in the corner behind the chimney. 
You’re welcome to anything you find there. I’ve not 
opened it in years.” 

Miss Janet was rather surprised at the sudden way in 
which at this moment her new helper vanished. 


THE TRUNK IN THE KITCHEN ATTIC 189 

Stephanie rocked on the gallery in lonely state that 
afternoon and wondered if her playfellow had deserted 
her. 

At the supper-table, however, he made some strange 
signs to her. She was filled with curiosity. 

“ Fve found it,” he drew her into the entry to whisper 
afterward. “And it’s a cryptogram !” 


CHAPTER XVII 


CHART NUMBER TWO 

For four days Roger acted in a way that tantalized 
Stephanie almost beyond what she could bear. 

The first two days he spent all his time expecting a 
package by mail. After it came he retired into his room 
and showed himself only at meal times. He then ap- 
peared with a pencil over one ear and a preoccupied eye 
behind his glasses. 

“ Highness, are you hypnotizing Roger, or anything? 
You stare him out of countenance every meal and he 
seems to be in a trance. This is four times I’ve asked 
him for the sugar. What’s more he sleeps with several 
standard authors and all kinds of paper and pencils in 
his bed.” 

“ Dan, if you go monkeying with my things ! ” barked 
Roger. 

To Stephanie when she waylaid him on the stairs he 
would only say, “ Wait till I’m ready.” 

“ But, Roger, what is it you have said you find?” 

“ Sh ! I found what we wanted to find. But it’s a 
cryptogram.” 

“ But what is a cryptogram ? ” 

“ A cryptogram is a cipher.” 

“ Aber, Roger, what is a cipher? ” 

“ Oh, nothing. You wait till I’m all ready.” 


CHART NUMBER TWO 


191 


And sure enough when she looked up cipher in the 
dictionary it was nothing. 

“ A figure signifying zero, or nothing.’’ 

At that Stephanie gave up the subject and almost for- 
got about it, learning to help Miss Janet with the cooking. 

The fifth morning, however, Roger appeared in the 
kitchen and saying: 

“ Miss Janet, if you would please be so kind as to 
excuse Sadie for a few minutes I have something very 
important to talk to her about, down at the dock in my 
boat,” turned and “ strode away ” like a moving picture 
hero who has just uttered an ultimatum. 

Miss Janet was so startled that she said : 

“ Hurry, dear. Don’t stop for anything. I hope 
Roger isn’t ill; he looks flushed.” 

Under the dock in the shade of its mossy green timbers 
the Susan R. sagged back and forth on the ebb tide. 
Stephanie climbed down three slippery rounds and 
dropped in beside Roger. He had a book and papers 
spread out on the stern deck and was sitting on his heels 
with his elbows on the coaming, studying these docu- 
ments. 

It was a still warm day of early June. From the shade 
of the dock they could look out over the glassy bay, which 
grew so pale in the distance that a faraway strip of water 
with a motionless sail on it seemed to be up in the sky. 
The air smelled of water-soaked rafters, deep sea mud, 
salt meadows and bayberry thickets baking in the sun. 
Nobody was astir, for all the yachts were out and Blue 
Heron children were at school. 

Stephanie seated herself in the boat and Roger gath- 
ered up his documents and turned to face her. He had 


192 


BLUE HERON COVE 


on his spectacles and he looked like a preacher as he 
began to hold forth. 

“ You want to listen well, Sadie, for this is a long, 
complicated thing and it’s going to be no cinch making 
you understand. It was your idea looking in a trunk; 
I give you the credit of that. But of course you couldn’t 
have worked out a cryptogram. 

“ Well, Miss Janet couldn’t give me any kind of a 
clue on her boarders but you know how Miss Janet is : — 
if Blackbeard himself came to stay here she’d say he 
seemed a well-meaning sort of man. She did acknowl- 
edge, though, that there was a trunk in the kitchen attic 
left behind by boarders— gunners mostly. Now gunners 
are an awful tough-looking set; they might be mixed up 
in any shady kind of business. So I looked that trunk 
over thoroughly, and it was full of boots and old novels 
and I was just thinking, Nothing doing, when I noticed 
a kind of flap-pocket inside the top tray and I opened it 
and — found this : ” 

He handed Stephanie a map. It was sketched with ink 
of different colors on heavy paper and labeled, as she 
saw in a moment, with familiar names — Great Swallow 
Bay, Grassy Point, Little Islands, Blue Heron Village, 
even the Life Saving Station was down. Speckled places 
showed where there were meadows, and a patch of Jap- 
anese looking marks evidently indicated the big pines. 
There were other lines that she did not understand, with 
dates 1761, 1882, 1842. The ocean too had speckled 
areas and was dotted with numbers, 5, 6, 18, 7, 11, and 
groups of letters sft m, fne gy s. 

Roger waited but a moment for his partner to study 
these features. 


CHART NUMBER TWO 


193 


“ You see it’s a map of right here — not an old one, 
because the words are all spelled right — for it shows the 
village and the railroad. But that doesn’t hurt any, for 
they must have copied an old chart and brought it up 
to date. Now, you observe that the ocean is all numbers 
and letters ? Don’t you ? ” 



m/fr sw/uiowB/ry^J^ /V 


/I A ID" 

J ~aft 

' "^nnirric:-- : a ^;< 


/ 

Aa t?s 


“ Yes, I observe,” said Stephanie, deeply engaged by 
Roger’s manner. 

“ Well, what do you think they stand for? ” 

She thought hard and timidly suggested, “ Fishes?” 
* Pshaw ! But of course I couldn’t expect you to 
understand. As soon as I noticed those letters and 



194 


BLUE HERON COVE 


numbers I sung out ‘ Here we are ! * For I knew it was 
a cipher. A cipher, Sadie, is a private way of telling 
a secret so nobody will understand. I don’t mean no- 
body but only those that are in on it already, unless some 
guy like me comes along that’s read a lot and can use 
his brains when he wants to and he unravels the thing. 
Well, as soon as I saw there was a cipher I wrote right 
up to town and told old Toby, Brother Morwood’s 
colored man, that I’d knock the wool off his bean (or 
something to that effect) if he didn’t send me down The 
Gold Bug from my room right away. It’s a story by 
Edgar Allan Poe. I hadn’t got round to telling it to 
you yet, but it gives the way to work out a pirate’s cipher. 
Here it is.” 

Roger took up a book which opened of itself at page 
36. Briefly he sketched the story. 

“ Now do you see how I went to work ? The book 
says the letter e is used more than any other in our 
language. So I looked at this map and found more 
number 5s than any other number and I wrote down, 

5 ~ e , 

a is the next commonest letter and 4 is the next common- 
est number on the map. All right then, 


4— a 


And so I worked along till I had made a little table. 
And here it is.” 

Stephanie took the scrap of paper he handed her. 
Perhaps she expected a picture of a piece of furniture 


CHART NUMBER TWO 195 

with a flat top and four legs. But this was “ the little 
table.” 

5 “ e 

4 — a 
6=0 
3 =i 

7 — d 
ly—h 
16— n 

9 ~ r 

io=s 

n=t 

i8=u 

8— y 

12— C 

I3=f 
J 9 =g 
14=1 
15— m 

20— W 

23 =b 
2i=k 

54 probably=repeat the same letter. 

Take numbers grouped together to make words, fne 
gy s and sft m must be some kind of special directions. 

While his pupil studied this Roger sped on: 

“ I took the numbers near together and wrote letters 
over ’em and say ! They do make words. Spelled wrong, 
of course, but you know I told you pirates were apt to 
do that — even Shakespeare. So I pieced them together 


BLUE HERON COVE 


196 

but I had to guess what fne and those other bunches of 
letters stand for. But it didn’t bother me much; the 
meaning simply jumped at me after I got going. Every- 
thing jibed dandy and here’s the whole thing worked 
out. And it sorta rhymes, even. When I noticed that 
I said to myself, that settles it. Look.” 

4-1 1 y 2 = a-t-t 

23-i4-i8=b-l-u 
7-6-g-^—d-o-r-e 
17-18-11 J^-5=h-u-t-t-e 
fne stands for face north east. 
gy s stands for get your (gun, of course) shoot! 

1 1-18-9- i6=t-u-r-n 
n-i8=t-u 
9-3-1 1 y 2 = r-i-t-t 

sft m—stek for treasure (by)< 
moonlight. 

Total Result 

Att blu dore hutte 

Face northeast. Get your (gun). Shoot! 

Turn to ritt 

Seek for treasure (by) moonlight. 

“Well, what do you think of it?” 

Stephanie had everything spread out on her lap and 
she looked first at the map and then at Roger’s scribbles, 
with her forehead creased like an old shoe. 

“ But, Roger,” she said at last. “ I did think you may- 
be find something which tells us about digging treasures 
for my giant up.” 


CHART NUMBER TWO 


197 


Roger made a gesture of despair. “ Well, what else 
have I been chewin’ about for the last hour? There is 
the chart in front of you. And that paper of mine 
gives exact directions.” 

“ To dig treasures? How? This is a language un- 
known to me.” 

“ Look at it again. H-u-t-t-e spells hut. In fact I 
think it’s French for that. A hut’s a house, isn’t it? 
And blu is just an old style, Shakespeare way of spelling 
blue. Where do we know a hut, or house, with blue 
doors that you must’ve seen as you went to Montague on 
the train ? ” 

Light dawned on Stephanie. “ The bunkhouse ! ” 

“ Sure. Now, see what it tells us to do: — From the 
front doors of the bunkhouse fire a gun northeast and 
turn to the right. Then we go back by moonlight and 
there will be a peculiar shadow or something to show 
the exact spot. It’s simple enough.” 

“ But ” said Stephanie dubiously. 

“ You always begin every sentence with but, or what’s 
that word ? — ‘ obber.’ ” 

“ Yes, Roger. Aber ” 

“ There you go. What’s ‘ obber 9 mean anyhow ? ” 

“ What I mean to say is, is it not then this bunkhouse 
which Dan says, ‘ Never go there ’ ? ” 

“ There. I knew you’d be fussing about that. Of 
course he said we weren’t to go when the men were 
there, but we’ll go first in the daytime when they’re all 
at work, and the spot we’re looking for is a gunshot away 
toward the ocean, and that’s quite far, and when we go 
back by moonlight we won’t disturb them in the least. 
And if Dan knew we’d actually got hold of a thing like 


BLUE HERON COVE 


198 

this cipher and worked it out he’d see the importance 
of the thing. And it’s for him we’re doing it. And 
what’s more, Sadie, you can see by that map that some- 
body’s been after it before, in 1761, 1842, and 1882. 
Probably one of the original pirate crew came in 1761 
and then the chart was carried off round the world by 
a sailor and as he was going to die he handed it to a 
friend who came back here in 1842. Somehow the first 
chart which was on parchment, of course, and in invisible 
ink, was destroyed, but somebody had made a copy and 
he came here, disguised as a gunner, to Price’s, where 
he gave up in despair and left this chart behind. And 
he may be living yet, and mark my words — if we don’t 
dig that money up he’ll be round after it.” 

Stephanie gathered the papers together at once. 

" So If that is true I think we should get one 

gait on us.” 

In spite of objections from Miss Janet, Stephanie 
picked up from Roger many expressions like the fore- 
going. 

“ My dear love, is that the way your teacher taught 
you to speak ? ” 

“ No, Miz Chanet, but I would learn the good English 
to spik and surprise my Herr Vater when he come. Any 
way I lieber spik as Roger than as Fraulein Hammer- 
schlag.” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 

Blue Heron Island lay hot and sleepy in the after- 
noon sun. Roger and Stephanie went down along the 
surf and when they reached a place where the sand was 
all trodden in footprints, showing that many persons had 
turned in toward the sandhills at that point, they left the 
beach and followed. The shoe marks were large and 
deep — made by the men of Dan’s crew, the same whom 
Stephanie had seen getting off from the train the night 
Miss Janet came. 

She had scarcely seen them since. They went back 
and forth between Montague and their quarters in the 
old Newbold house. They did not trouble Blue Heron 
Village, and the Newbold tract was forbidden ground to 
Stephanie and Roger because of these very men. 

Nevertheless, here they were following a path that 
wound back among the sandhills, over a bluff and down 
between high bushes to the forbidden house. 

“ I didn’t know the men went this way so much. I 
thought they used the road.” 

“ How still it is here. Pfui ! It gives bad smells and 
so much tins and bottles.” 

“ I hope nobody’s round — but they aren’t, of course; 
they’re a mile and a half away. You’re right about 
smells. Phew! Here’s the old house. Yes, they’re all 
away.” 


199 


200 


BLUE HERON COVE 


All was quiet save the wind in the warm pine tops. 
Soft clouds sailed in a summer sky up there but it seemed 
to Stephanie that they sped faster over this spot where 
she now stood, the sooner to leave it behind them. 

The old house which had once been pretentious for a 
beach farm, with double verandas and steps on the north 
side to wide front doors, was all in disarray — windows 
broken or stuffed with rags, chimneys tottering, railings 
draped with dirty clothes and blankets. All around the 
house and back under the bushes the sand was covered 
with tin cans, bottles, clam and oyster shells, papers, 
garbage, over which buzzed bluebottle flies. At the ap- 
proach of the children some rats scuttled off into the 
brush. 

“ I don’t like it here,” declared Stephanie, holding her 
nose. 

“ ’Tis rather messy. Dan’s tried and tried to make 
them keep it clean and that’s one of the things they hate 
him for.” 

“ You say we come back here by nights? ” 

“ No, we don’t come near the house but northeast, 
wherever our tag falls. This gun shoots a hundred yards 
and that’ll be way out on the beach, I think. Of course 
I wouldn’t bring you round this joint after dark. Dan 
wouldn’t like that at all.” 

Nor would Dan like them to be here this afternoon, 
they both knew well. At' the sound of something slam- 
ming they started violently, but it was only the breeze 
flapping a broken shutter. 

By some freak in the taste of the late Thomas Newbold 
his front doors had been painted a bright blue. They 
were nailed shut and their color stood out from the rest 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 201 


of the house, which was gray. The visitors picked a 
gingerly way between cans and bottles to the front steps; 
Roger took a position directly in the middle of the doors, 
located nor’east by his compass, pointed the gun (rather 
shakily) in that direction, and fired. 

At its loud roar they fled, by one impulse, kicking and 
stumbling against tin cans and tripping over vines. It 
was like escaping from a mouldy cellar to find themselves 
on the clean white beach once more. 

Then they began to look for what had been fired from 
the gun. 

Roger had packed a cartridge for this purpose. Into 
its open end on top of powder and shot he had stuffed 
a blue rag weighted with shot. Why a blue one? Were 
they not on Blue Heron Island, directed by a map con- 
taining figures on a blue background to a “ Blu dore 
hutte ” ? 

Was there any significance in the fact that, just as 
they spied their scrap, the wind caught and blew it nimbly 
over the beach ? They ran and it seemed to wait for them 
and then fluttered away just as their fingers reached for 
it. At last it caught in the timbers of the big wreck. 

This landmark was the skeleton of a good-sized ship, 
with a double row of black ribs sticking up out of the 
sand like the legs of some colossal beetle. The bow end 
pointed south and had some of the deck and sheathing 
still upon it. 

The blue rag caught on an iron spike. 

Roger panted, “ Don’t touch it ! ” He tied it fast to 
the spike. “ But did you see where it started from be- 
fore the wind took it ? ” 

“ I think near that seaweed.” 


202 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“No, it was further in, by those clumps of grass.” 

“ Perhaps before we look it blows some, already.” 

“Yes, that’s so. Beans! How are we to tell? I 
think this cipher’s awfully indefinite.” 

He pulled the papers out of his pocket and looked them 
through. 

“ At blu dore hutte 

Face northeast. Get your (gun). Shoot! 

Turn to ritt 

Seek for treasure by moonlight.” 

“ It doesn’t say a thing about what to do in case of a 
southwest breeze,” said Roger disgustedly. 

They finally marked all three places — the bunch of sea- 
weed, the tufts of grass, and the spikes in the old wreck. 

“ Must we then dig in these all places ? ” 

“ No, I don’t think so, because when we come at night 
and turn to the right we’ll get some sign from the moon- 
light.” 

“ You speak verses, Roger, as poet Heine.” 

“ Heiney? I don’t know him. But I’ll tell you what 
I do think : — the treasure’s in that old wreck. I believe 
it’s the wreck of a Spanish galleon. Now we better get 
back before time for Dan.” 

Roger was anxious to set Dan’s shotgun back in its 
accustomed place, for while his brother allowed him free 
use of a certain small rifle, he was not supposed to handle 
the larger gun. 

They waited for two evenings but a film of cloud 
spread over the sky after sunset. Then came a bright 
clear evening and a half moon that Roger said would do. 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 203 

Dan had gone away, up to the city, the day before. Miss 
Janet started for the post-office and was going from there 
to see Mrs. Hosy Tonkins’ sick baby. Cap’n dozed in his 
room. 

A clear coast, literally. The tide was dead low and the 
surf whispered softly so far out that a strip of tide beach 
lay bare, as wide as Fifth Avenue, hard enough to run 
on, yet springy to the feet — finer than any boardwalk 
south of Sandy Hook. 

“ I am never before out nights wizout electricity. So 
much stars but they and the moon make such a little bit 
of light ! How black it look in those sandhills.” 

As they went farther from home and the lamp-lit 
windows of Blue Heron were lost behind sandhills it did 
seem lonely. Three Bar Light was behind them. They 
went slowly, stopping every now and then to get their 
bearings. They passed the place of many footprints 
and were some distance south of it before suspecting 
their mistake. So they crossed to the foot of the 
shadowy dunes and groped their way to the wreck. 
There Roger had stowed away two new shovels bought 
for this purpose at Bissell’s store. 

“ Turn to ritt 

Seek for treasure (by) moonlight.” 

They turned to the right, east, west, north, south, from 
each of the marked spots and peered groundward for a 
sign. 

“ What for sign shall it be ? ” Stephanie had asked. 

“ Oh, a shadow of something — a skull or crossed bones 
or a yard-arm like they used to hang chaps from.” 


204 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Stephanie did not see any of these things but she 
began to feel very nervous about every black patch and 
object on the beach and to have a notion that something 
was coming out of those deep glades in the hills which 
might catch at her ankles from behind. 

“ Why do you come just where I do ? Why don’t you 
turn to the right by yourself? We’ve got this whole 
beach and the wreck to dig over and not much time and 
the most punk directions to go by that ever were. I 
don’t see why they took the trouble of putting it in 
cipher; it doesn’t tell anything. Now you look over 
there to the right of that hummock.” 

“ Aber, I don’t like to look wiz myself. What is that 
thing which sits behind the hummock ? ” 

Roger marched over to look. 

“ Pshaw ! It’s a golden-rod plant.” 

“ Well, it gives also a long black thing on the ground. 
Wiz a strange tail.” 

“ Piece of board and some trash washed up on it.” 

“ Hark ! what is that ? ” 

This time it was no fancy. From the direction 
of the surf the sea breeze brought a sound of low, 
gruff voices. 

Stephanie grabbed at Roger’s sleeve, thinking of 
pirates, dead or alive. But Roger’s heart stood still for 
another reason. 

“ It’s the men. Quick — let’s hide ! ” 

The nearest refuge was the bow end of the wreck and 
they scuttled into its shadow. 

Enough of the quarter and counter timbers was left 
to make sheltering walls which cast a deep shadow north- 
ward. Outside the old hull a heap of planks had been 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 205 

thrown down by some one gathering driftwood. Inside 
the inclosure was a sloping floor of fine soft sand which 
they crowded upon. The voices were slowly coming 
nearer. 

“ I didn’t think they’d be up this time of night. Dan 
said they went to bed by eight. They’ve been in town 
against orders again and they went along the surf for 
fear of getting caught. Never mind. They’ll cross the 
beach way down and then we’ll beat it. Don’t you be 
afraid ! ” 

The oncomers’ route across the sand was not so far 
distant after all, for a moment later the voices were close 
by, and then they had stopped only a few yards away 
and their words were audible. 

“ ’Tain’t so late.” 

“No. Whatsa use of goin’ in? We can talk better 
here.” 

“ Some bloke might come along.” 

“ What of it? He’s off, to-night, and the rest’s 
asleep. Come over by that heap o’ timber.” 

There in the dark each of the hidden ones knew that 
the other must have a thumping heart and cold hands 
and a face screwed up stiffly, as they heard the three 
men walk close and drop down on the pile of driftwood, 
with only the old ship’s timbers between. Stephanie 
knew they were disobeying Dan and Miss Janet too and 
that these were rough men who talked loud and rudely. 
Roger knew this and that Dan would “ give it to him ” 
for planning this expedition, and besides all this, as he 
listened, a new fear slowly wakened in him at their 
words. 

Stephanie could scarcely understand a single phrase. 


206 BLUE HERON COVE 

But Roger understood well enough to piece out of their 
dock and alley slang its real purport. 

Stephanie heard him draw his breath sharply. It 
seemed as if the men would smoke their pipes and talk 
forever. She grew tired of squatting on her ankles and 
tried to move a little but Roger pinched her arm. What 
were they quarreling about? “ That sneak.” “That 
d — n spy.” “ Keeping honest men out of their rights.” 
“ Break his head.” She felt pricklings in her toes. She 
wanted to sneeze. At last they were getting to their feet, 
knocking their pipes against the big timbers close to two 
unseen heads. They stood a minute, seemed to conclude 
some plan, then strolled away. 

“Quick!” said Roger. Two hunched-up, spidery 
shapes dodged out of the shadow and skimmed across the 
beach. 

“ Hi ! Who’s there ? ” shouted one of the men. He 
explained to the others, “ I thought I saw something go 
over that ridge toward the ocean.” 

Roger and Stephanie heard the shout and their hearts 
seemed to turn over. Their feet beat on the sand as they 
panted along and once or twice they almost fell face 
downward. 

No light ever twinkled brighter than the Life Saving 
Station windows. The fugitives turned in toward them 
and how good it seemed when they were close enough to 
look in and see some of the crew sitting there playing 
checkers. 

They leaned against the iron fence, breathing hard. 

“ Did you hear ? Did you hear what those — those 
liars were talking? You didn’t? Well, I could under- 
stand well enough after a minute and they were fixing 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 207 

up something against Dan Yes, sir, my brother 

Dan! They’re going to get him alone some night and 
all pitch on him. They said the rest of the crew would 
fall in line if they 1 stood the booze.’ I didn’t quite get 
the hang of it but they said if he got funny with them 
they could get him in wrong with the old man — that’s 
Morwood, of course, and it shows they know how things 
are between Dan and him. There was a lot about work- 
ingmen’s rights, and they called Dan names that made me 
want to yell. I’d like to go back there and smash their 
heads. Sadie, Dan said he might come back to-night if 
his friends from Montague offered him a lift in their car. 
Supposing he should stop at the quarters? Supposing 
he’s there now? If they pitched onto him what could 
we do ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” whimpered Stephanie. 

“ Hullo ! ” a big voice called close by. 

They ran forward, saw a tall man coming across lots 
toward them and rushed upon him. 

“ Dan, when’d you come? You didn’t go to Mon- 
tague? Don’t go down there, Dan, will you? Promise 
you won’t go down the road after dark? Dan, 
promise ! ” 

“ Mine Giant, we have a such times. Ach, it was bad ! 
So much mens and my heart beats and they are bad men 
and Roger says you must not go wiz them.” 

Dan stood motionless a moment and then turned on 
his heel and said, “ Come along up to the house.” 

His tone was short but they were so glad to be with 
him that they crowded on each side, though they had to 
trample into the high grass to keep abreast. 

He went straight home and into the empty, lighted 


208 BLUE HERON COVE 

kitchen, where he lit his pipe and sat down, facing 
them. 

“ Now suppose you two open up to me about this.” 

“ Listen, Dan. You stay away from the pines and 
don’t go that way after dark, not on your life, or if 
you do, take Cap’n Bill and Hi Crammer with you with 
pistols. The best thing would be to get the whole bunch 
into jail, first thing to-morrow morning. There’s a jail 
on the mainland, isn’t there? Or a box-car would do. 
You could load ’em in and couple onto the 945- Any- 
way promise you won’t go alone, Dan. Promise.” 

The giant pointed to two chairs opposite him. 

“ Explanations first. Where’ve you two been to- 
night?” 

“ Down on the beach — a ways.” 

“ How far?” 

“ Far as — well, the big wreck.” 

“ Right opposite the quarters. Hm! Well, it’s a fine 
night for a stroll. I came down by auto. Found my 
roommate missing and then noticed the south chamber 
door open and the room empty. Over at Tonkins’ Miss 
Janet said you were both in bed. I didn’t dispute her 
but began looking round a little and it was an hour 
before I heard your voices down by the station-house. 
Do you take these moonlight runs often? ” 

“ Don’t get mad, Dan. I know you told us not to go 
near the crew. But we didn’t go near ’em — they came 
near us. Besides, I was sure they always went to bed 
early. I saw Tony Feraro with his nightcap on one 
night from the road sticking it out of the window when 
it wasn’t even dark,” Roger explained faster and faster. 
“ But this was Murphy, Dan, and a man they called Tug, 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 209 

and Jake Ohlen, and they’re a bad lot. They called you 
stingy cuss, and worse than that, and they’re going to 
get the other men in, and, Dan, you won’t go down there 
any night, will you ? ” 

“ Speak slow and tell me what all this is about? 
Murphy and Jake Ohlen! How came you to hear any 
talk of theirs ? ” 

Roger recounted what he had heard. 

“ They say,” he ended, “ they’ve got you either way, 
for if you are too much for ’em and do any damage they 
have a fellow at the office that’ll report and make you a 
lot of trouble with the old man — Brother Morwood, they 
mean, don’t they ? ” 

Dan flushed angrily at this last. He sat smoking in 
silence and staring into space for what seemed to the 
children an endless time. At last he glanced at them and 
their anxious brows cleared a little, as they caught the 
quizzical gleam in his black eyes. 

His voice however was sharp and brisk : 

“ Now tell me what you went down there for any- 
way.” 

“ Well, Dan, you know what a really important thing 
we did finding that monument ? I suppose nobody would 
ever have located it if we hadn’t gone systematically to 
work. It made me feel sure this old house ought to be 
thoroughly searched ” 

“ For more monuments? ” 

“ No, for papers — that is, a certain kind of paper. 
You know what I mean, Dan, and you needn’t laugh and 
snort for you don’t know at all what I’ve read in the 
public library about pirates — yes, sir — hiding down 
around here and of course they must have buried stuff 


210 


BLUE HERON COVE 


and then drew a chart and that’s what I was looking for, 
and so when I came across a queer map in a trunk in the 
kitchen attic ” 

“ Kitchen attic ! Pshaw ! I thought of course it was 
handed to you by a one-eyed stranger who had it as the 
last bequest of a dying sailor man homeward bound from 
Brazil on a brig called Nellie” 

“ Quit your kiddin’, Dan. This is the real thing this 
time and I guess you’ll admit that much when I show you 
the cipher, made in figures all over the ocean and the 
way it works out in poetry and everything. I solved it 
my own self.” 

“No? What does it say?” 

Roger stuffed a hand into his pocket and pulled out a 
package of papers. 

“ This is the answer and all worked out, 

‘ At blu dore hutte 

Face northeast. Get your (gun). Shoot! 

Turn to ritt, 

Seek for treasure (by) moonlight.’ 

A hut’s a house, isn’t it ? And a house we know of has 
blue doors. Now whatta you know about that? ” 

Certainly the giant had the air of a person deeply 
impressed. He looked from one of his companions to 
the other. 

“ Would you mind letting me see your documents, old 
chap ? ” 

Roger handed the papers over and Dan took them and 
spread them out on the table in the lamplight. The chil- 
dren came close also. 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 211 


“ This is the important paper ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

The giant scrutinized it long and closely. Then he 
examined all the scraps of paper on which Roger had 
figured out his code. 

He went back to the chair with the map in his hand 
and lit his pipe afresh. 

“ Where did you say you found this, Boxer ? ” 

“ In the kitchen attic in a trunk of things left behind 
by boarders.” 

“Ha. And what gave you the idea of a cipher?” 

“ Oh, most pirate charts are in cipher. In The Gold 
Bug •” 

“ Oh, yes, The Gold Bug. It’s some years since I read 
that but wasn’t there a parchment and some kind of fad- 
ing ink and skulls dangling from trees ? So you figured 
this out with these results? Very curious. Fact is, it 
really is curious. The bunkhouse has blue doors, of 
course. They say Tom Newbold had started to paint his 
house when the Lizzie M . went down and he never got 
any farther than the doors. What did you do — shoot 
northeast from there? ” 

“ Yes, we went down Wednesday afternoon,” admitted 
Roger, hanging his head. 

“ How did you locate the shot? ” 

“ By a rag stuffed into a cartridge. Only it blew all 
over the beach and that made it awfully puzzling. I 
thought the moonlight would reveal some sign, like the 
shadow of — er — a gibbet or something.” 

“ And instead, it revealed a lot of foolish, tipsy non- 
sense from Jake Ohlen and Tug Schwartz and Murphy. 
Now, Roger, I’m not going to call you the way you de- 


212 


BLUE HERON COVE 


serve for this — or Highness either (for she heard what 
I said about it plainly). You went down there twice 
against orders and to-night got a good scare that is 
punishment enough, I guess. Only you know if you 
can’t stick by me Morwood’s waiting for an excuse to 
take you away ? ” 

“ Oh, Dan ! ” exclaimed Roger in deep consternation. 
“ I’ll never disobey orders again.” 

“ And we shall never make nossing wiz bunkhouse, 
ever,” declared Stephanie. 

The giant’s expression relaxed. “ About the treasure, 
now. There may be gold and silver buried in this island 
— there’s very little above ground, certainly. But it 
doesn’t seem a likely place on account of the continuous 
shift caused by wind and tide. A Government Coast 
Survey man that stayed here once explained all that to 
me. Erosion , he called it. Quite a clever chap he was 
— name of Smithers. Nice fellow, Smithers, but he never 
could get used to the mosquitoes and I guess he got 
another berth the next year. But he sketched a lot of 
maps. And by the way, Boxer, old man, that chart of 
yours is one of ’em.” 

“ Dan, I don’t believe it. Why, just look at the 
cipher ” 

“ Sorry, but there isn’t any cipher, really. Those fig- 
ures — they show the depth of the ocean at different 
points. As for the letters I expect fne gy s stand for 
4 fine gray sand ’ — material of the bottom of the ocean 
right there — and sft m, soft mud. There’s some regu- 
lar mud holes about half a mile out. I was round 
a lot with that chap, Smithers, and helped him take his 
soundings. Those dotted lines represent high tide marks 


SECOND EXPEDITION AND SECOND FIND 213 

different years, I guess. This part of the coast is par- 
ticularly subject to erosion.” 

The giant began laying the papers carefully together. 
He did not appear to notice a strained silence in his 
audience. 

“ The only part I can’t clear up is that poetry o’ yours, 
Box. Whatta you do for that when you feel it cornin’ 
on ? I wouldn’t know how to treat it if you was to get 
one of those spells in the night.” But he forbore to 
press this matter. “ Pirates? Well, I expect the near- 
est thing we’ve got to a pirate along shore is old Hermit 
Pinneo over on Crooked Point. Folks say he used to 
toll ships on shore with a lantern, tied to a mule’s head to 
make it dance up and down like a ship’s light, but I don’t 
know. Cap’n Price don’t take any stock in those yarns. 
He says Pinneo used to grab a handful of fish-hooks on 
the sly when he came in the store. But perhaps Pinneo 
would put you on the right track if you could only run 
him down. He’s a shy bird, I guess. 

“ There comes Miss Janet. You cut along upstairs and 
I’ll detain her here till you’re in your bunks, and we’ll 
consider that all bets are off. Good night.” 


CHAPTER XIX 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 

Miss Janet noticed the children on several nights 
lingering out on the highroad. 

“ Come in, both of you. It’s after nine.” 

“ We’re watching for Dan.” 

“ But Daniel went to Montague. He won’t be home 
till late.” 

They came in reluctantly with backward glances down 
the road. 

“ Let’s not tell Miss Janet. She’s got plenty troubles 
of her own.” 

So they went to their rooms and to bed but kept awake 
until the step they were waiting for sounded along the 
porch, echoing loud in the stillness of eleven or twelve 
o’clock. 

“ Did I wake you up, Boxer ? ” 

“ I haven’t been asleep.” 

“ What’s the matter?” 

“Dan, carry your revolver, won’t you, please? Or 
that blackjack? ” 

“ What for ? You worrying about those soreheads the 
other night? Cut it out. Why, they sit around every 
night shooting off hot air about me, and when they do 
sneak downtown and get a drink they holler louder than 
ever about restrictions I put on ’em. Ohlen and those 
other two are the worst of the bunch. The dagos don’t 
214 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 215 

kick any. You put the whole thing out of your head. 
How’d you know anything about a blackjack? ” 

“ I saw it in your second drawer/’ 

“ Well, you just keep out of my things! ” 

Dan had not intended to have his brother see the black- 
jack — a club made of lead covered with black leather — or 
the revolver. In case of a bad row he might need them, 
but he would use his fists first. 

Roger reported to his fellow watcher what Dan had 
said and as time went on and nothing happened and every 
morning saw the object of their care come in, bending 
his head to get through the kitchen doorway, and begin 
breakfast with a good appetite for his oatmeal and with 
jocular, slangy greetings for all present — gradually their 
worry faded and they felt that everything was all right; 
Dan could handle any trouble. Only Roger hated the 
sight of Ohlen and Murphy and remembered their ugly 
threats, and he said over and over to his partner, “ I 
wish Dan was rich and didn’t need to work with men 
like that.” 

Miss Janet Price had a worry of her own. 

Five weeks and three days had passed since the sail- 
ing of the yacht Harpoon. She had written in care of 
the Surety and Trust Company several letters and had 
even apologized again for that “ scolding letter” — 
“ Though I cannot cease to indorse its interior signifi- 
cance,” she added. She let out the surprise she had been 
saving : — “ Mr. Alan, I know you will turn this way 
when I tell you your little girl adores you. She has 
always done so.” At length she merely begged some 
news. 

But no news came and night after night Miss Janet lay 


2l6 


BLUE HERON COVE 


awake. Now she saw old scenes: — the two lads — her 
brother and his adored friend from the city — cleaning 
guns in the kitchen or sitting on the steps with arms 
over each other’s shoulders, and she tried to reconcile that 
lad with the writer of that hard letter, the man who was 
off on a pleasure trip indifferent alike to his little girl 
and his old friends. Again she fancied some disaster 
and remembered wrecks on this coast and the sailors 
that were washed overboard when the French barque 
ran aground. And again she worried all night about 
money : perhaps she had been too hasty sending 
back that check. Money was needed right now 
before the boarders came. The Land Company was 
trying to hunt up a flaw in their title because they 
coveted this particular strip of land. That meant 
lawyer’s fees. Here she was with an old man to care 
for, perhaps a little girl too. 

She made up her mind to write soon to New York, to 
the gentleman who notified her when Mr. Alan went 
away. 

On the eighteenth of June boarders and mosquitoes 
began to arrive at Blue Heron simultaneously. 

Mr. Beagle from Trenton and Mrs. Piffington of 
Paterson came the same day. Their summer was one 
long campaign for the largest hot water jug, the top pan- 
cake, the breeziest veranda corner, and the right side of 
the parlor lamp, the first handling of the mail and the 
last possession of the New York Times Sunday Supple- 
ment. Mrs. Piffington usually scored, being a veteran of 
boarding-houses both in America and Europe. 

The lady from Philadelphia came June 20th on the 
12.05, f° r that was her day and hour, and Miss Janet 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 217 

would no more have looked for her on the twenty-fourth 
at 4.35 than for roses in December. 

The Bradshaw family came as soon as Willy and Irene 
were out of kindergarten, but Mr. Bradshaw only stayed 
over night and ran for an early train back to town. 
Stephanie told Roger later that it might be that Mr. Brad- 
shaw disliked the odor of graham crackers. For graham 
crackers, in a moist and decimated condition, marked the 
wake of the infant Bradshaws, like a paper chase. 

All these were Miss Janet's regular summer boarders 
— except the youngest Bradshaw who was not regular 
about anything as yet and had summered nowhere. He 
occupied a carriage with a crossbar net veil over it, 
wheeled by a colored girl named Lily Washington, and 
was given by Stephanie a wary and distant observation. 
All the other boarders knew Miss Janet well, the house, 
the meals. They knew the best points of each. 

Great therefore was the shock given them by certain 
changes they discovered on arrival. 

A new boarder had come. She had been there three 
months and had the best of everything. 

She was in the south chamber. That was offensive in 
itself, for the south chamber was an apple of discord 
and Miss Janet was by way of giving it to different ones 
in turn for the season; Mrs. Bradshaw claimed it this 
year. But here was the new boarder installed in this 
largest, lightest, newly-papered, freshly-painted, best 
corner room. That was not all. The earliest comers 
had a great deal to tell Mrs. Bradshaw when she arrived. 

“ New curtains, my dear, and a toilet set that must 
have cost six dollars though Miss Price probably bought 
it at a sale — poor, good creature. Pears soap, and did 


2l8 


BLUE HERON COVE 


you count the towels as you passed the door? For old 
patrons of the house two a day are enough. There is 
a dainty cover on the bureau — Miss Price knows so little 
about children! A rocking-chair — new comforter — the 
large mosquito canopy — a new Ostermoor mattress. And 
linen sheets! I just stepped inside the door and exam- 
ined them. Pve been coming to poor, dear Captain’s for 
eight years and never dreamed of asking for linen ” 

“ But it was my turn to have the room,” cried Mrs. 
Bradshaw. “ And Miss Janet promised it to me, or at 
least said she hadn’t engaged it for another season, and 
I wanted one corner for Irene and another for Doris and 
the Smith boys’ room for baby and the one next the 
bathroom for Willie and Freddie. I had it all planned 
out and I was sure Miss Janet would let us have them all 
for the same she let us have the two west rooms last 
year.” 

“ Who is she ? Who’s the child ? Where’d she come 
from ? What’s her name ? Whatsa child’s name ? ” de- 
manded Mr. Beagle, who had a testy way of repeating 
every sentence. 

“ I didn’t catch the name,” said Mrs. Bradshaw. “ I 
only saw there was one small girl in that great sunny 
room — the only room in the house fit for family use. I 
didn’t care what her name was.” 

“ I took pains to learn the name,” said Mrs. Piffing- 
ton. “ It is such a peculiar name, and new to me, though 
I have many acquaintances in the residential section of 
Hoboken.” 

The lady from Philadelphia looked just as curious as 
the others though she always kept her rocker at a little 
distance. 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 219 

“ The name/’ said Mrs. Piffington, “ is Wienerwurst — 
Sadie Wienerwurst.” 

“ Wienerwurst! ” repeated the lady from Philadelphia 
in awful tones. “ That is not a name. It is a sausage.” 
And that day at dinner she caused Miss Janet to place a 
screen between her table and Stephanie’s seat in the din- 
ing-room. She was a Mrs. Cadwalader-Stotesbury 
Jones. 

For they ate now in the old store. There were three 
separate tables besides the meat-block, which remained a 
meat-block, even under the vestments of a serving table. 
Miss Janet was busy all the time; she could never be got 
at any more. Dan spent his evenings out. From the 
porches all knick-knacks were banished, such as soap- 
boxes of fishing tackle, dead crabs, and treasures picked 
up on the surf. Not a pet mud-turtle, even, might dis- 
port itself under the eye of the lady from Philadelphia. 

The hotel and the cottages were filled now also. Along 
the highway motorcars, motorcycles, huckster wagons, 
carriages, carts, and bicycles passed continuously. The 
beach was peopled — the dock. A boat could not be bailed 
out except under a hail of advice from dock idlers and 
houseboat dwellers. 

The Bradshaw children were even as Roger had fore- 
told. 

They marched into Stephanie’s room without a knock 
and, fixing themselves in front of her, stared with un- 
winking eyes and propounded questions such as these : 

“ Are you a lady or a girl? ” 

“ Why do you put soap on yourself ? ” 

" Is that the ocean ? ” 

" Why do they have an ocean ? ” 


220 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Why is your hair long? ” 

“ Do you sleep on a mattress ? ” 

“ Why do you talk funny? ” 

“ Is that the sky ? ” 

“ Do you like the sky? ” 

“ Do you like this toothbrush ? ” 

“ Does Roger like his toothbrush? ” 

“ Does Dan like his toothbrush ? ” 

“ Why aren’t mosquitoes nice? ” 

“ Is this to-morrow or to-day? ” 

Roger gloomily beckoned her aside. “ What’d I tell 
you ? Aren’t they the limit ? ” 

Stephanie acknowledged it. 

“ The time has come,” he declared with a wide gesture, 
“ when the only escape for us is across the deep water.” 

And so, with their lunch in a basket and a good con- 
science for ballast, they set the rudder of the Susan R., 
stepped the mast, raised sail and slipped out of Blue 
Heron Cove, morning after morning, into the wide 
stretches of Great Swallow Bay. 

They had passed all requirements. Stephanie could 
swim, dive, and float, and she could handle the Susan R . 
alone. 

Great Swallow Bay is not anywhere more than waist- 
deep at low tide, except in the channels and sunk harbors. 
It is five miles wide in parts and the summer residents 
on Blue Heron Island know little of its opposite shore 
except the end of Long Point, where fishing is good, and 
the hucksters who come round by the bridge to peddle 
mainland squash and watermelons. Its hamlets lie far 
aside from the macadam road to Atlantic City with its 
whirling tide of travel. Grassy Run and Heckle’s 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 221 


Medders are not even railroad stations. These dozy 
little settlements lie steaming in the salt mash and get 
their living off the crick — Tipp’s Crick, Grassy Run, and 
Spearing Cove. Also, there was formerly Crooked Crick, 
with a little lumber settlement at the headwaters, but the 
sawmill burned down and a sandbar formed across the 
mouth of the Crick after a storm, closing it for good. 

At the far gray line of the mainland, or “ the Main,” 
as Blue Heron called it, Stephanie had peered, shading 
her eyes and wondering if it was the same as the Spanish 
Main , mentioned in all pirate stories. 

But now, often as twice a week, they sailed across 
and cruised all up and down its shore. 

You follow a yacht as it leaves the fishing place where 
many boats are anchored and find presently the green 
meadows closing in upon you. This is Tipp’s Crick. If 
you stand up in the boat there are misty hills ahead but 
all around miles and miles of flat salt marsh dotted with 
cows, an oyster house, a single willow tree, a stack of 
salt hay. As you sit in the boat you can only see the 
banks with grass arrowheads along the top. At low tide 
these banks look like wet chocolate and they are stuck full 
of clams and purple mussels and riddled by fiddler crabs, 
jerking in and out of wet chocolate caves, brandishing 
their bass viols. Farther along there are nets spread, 
with corks a-dangle, and old eel baskets and fences and 
boat-sheds and tributary ditches in which boats lie cached 
with the grass meeting over them. 

Yachts and fast skiffs pass you and presently their 
sails seem to be taking a walk in the meadow — they’ve 
only sailed round the next bend. Other boats go by 
rather slowly so that whoever is in them can take a good 


222 BLUE HERON COVE 

stare at you under the boom or over the top of rickety 
motor engines. 

Roger and Stephanie stared back, especially when it 
was a boy their own age or a boatful of tow-heads. 

“ Those are Tippville kids,” said Roger. 

Grassy Run and Spearing Cove are like Tipp Crick, 
only too small for yachts. The Susan R. tied up at all 
the landings and its occupants got out and stood and 
stared at the tow-headed boys and girls who were 
manceuvering small boats or helping their fathers or sit- 
ting in the door of houseboats. By and by Roger would 
begin to give advice and the Tippville boys would say, 
“ Aw, shut up ! ” and very soon everybody would feel 
acquainted. 

“ My brother Dan says ” 

“ Who ? Dan Smith ? Ain’t he the big feller that 
lifted Mose Rutter’s garvey off the mash? ” 

Dan was known even in Heckle’s Medders for certain 
feats of strength he had performed at Cranberry Low 
Bottom while waiting for a load of gravel there. 

So they made friends and swapped portions of their 
lunch for pork pie and fried eels out of houseboat galleys 
and became well and favorably known on all the Cricks. 
All except, of course, Crooked Crick, which is stopped 
up and abandoned. 

“ Maouth filled up in a naweaster. Ain’t ary boat been 
inside Crooked Crick in seven year.” 

“ There has too,” disputed Roger. 

“ Hain’t neither.” 

“ Has too. Pirate Pinneo’s boat. My brother Dan 
told me he lived on Crooked Point somewhere up the 
Crick.” 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 223 

“ S-s-s-s-h ! ” 

At the mention of that name all the children drew 
away and glanced nervously toward the nearest grown- 
up people — a woman hanging out clothes on the deck of 
a houseboat and certain individuals in boats who were 
fathers of some of those present. 

“ Shut up!” 

“ Maw says not tew talk ’baout that ’ere.” 

“ Paw might lick me.” 

But they drew the newcomers farther off along the 
bulkhead presently and talked in whispers. 

“ He don’t rightly live there.” 

“ Whatta you mean ? ” demanded Roger. 

“He Hants Crooked Point.” 

“ His dory ain’t a real boat.” 

“ My Cousin Si seen it ’baout three year ago early in 
the morning. Says you could look right through it, he 
says.” 

“ Pete Rutter and Doe Gibbs got ashore awn the 
Point. An’ they tromped miles an’ miles through a 
mash an’ they come nigh the haouse. An’ they saw a 
witch ! ” 

“ Yes’n they run! An’ they kept failin’ in the mash 
an’ they thought they heerd a screech an’ they jumped 
into the garvey an’ never stopped polin’ till they struck 
the main channel an’ lost their pole.” 

“ Some says if you sight that dory it means foul 
weather.” 

“ She kites along under full sail when it’s a dead 
ca’m.” 

“ My uncle says Pirate Pinneo’s house is full of gold 
and silver and velvet chairs an’ kaigs o’ wine off’n vessels 


224 


BLUE HERON COVE 


an’ Pirate Pinneo he made the vessels founder an’ the 
folks that drownded they come a knockin’ there at night 
an’ he keeps a witch at the door to drive ’em off.” 

“ Yes, ’n’ when they’s a gale I heerd ’em haowlin’ 
round our barn, I did.” 

As he listened to all this, Roger turned upon one and 
another of the group eyes of scornful derision. 

“You don’t say so! You kids must be poor boobs. 
Everything you’ve said is stuff and nonsense and those 
two fellows that skipped off and jumped into their boat 
so fast musta been a couple-a boneheads. Look at here 
— I’m going up there myself ’n’ find out what they is to 
it. I am.” 

“ You dassent.” 

“ Why dassent I ? Come on, Sadie. It’s time for us 
to start down Crick.” 

As they pushed off he said to her: “ Your eyes stick 
out as though you believed that trash.” To the bare- 
legged crowd watching them from the landing he called 
back: 

“ I should worry about your old spook, Pinneo.” 

Roger took the tiller ropes, for Tipp Crick was difficult 
steering. As they came out into wide water his com- 
panion noticed that he laid his course in a new direction. 
She looked at him apprehensively. 

“ Roger, is it so — you go now to Crooked Point to 
see?” 

“ Not to-day, to the Point. But I am going some day 
and you can come with me if you want to. Aw, don’t 
pay any attention to what you hear at Tippville. Those 
kids don’t hardly know enough to catch shrimps. I feel 
sorry for ’em, living the way they do without public 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 225 

libraries or museums or — Wanamakers, or anything. 
But I tell you where I am going. Joe Embree’s got his 
boat up by Big Bonnet Island. He’s clamming there. 
He’ll tell us all about old Pinneo from A to Z.” 

Joe Embree was a sad-looking man with very light blue 
eyes, long sandy moustaches, and a taste for literature. 
Some time ago the crew of the Susan R. had become 
acquainted with him and they sometimes ate their lunch 
on his boat. Roger lent him books and Mr. Embree spun 
yarns in return. He had lived, a bachelor, along Great 
Swallow Bay some forty years. 

Only the upper part of Mr. Embree was visible above 
the water as they drew near, for he was treading clams 
in four feet depth. Stephanie had learned to wade in 
the mud but she never could understand how Mr. Embree 
could feel for sharp clams with his toes, while eels, 
crabs, or toadfish even, might be whirling round his 
shins. 

He reached down into the water and threw a handful 
of clams into the small boat he was holding with one 
hand. 

“ How’re you, Cap’n? An’ how’s the mate?” 

“We’re all right, Joe. We’ve been over to Tipp’s 
Crick. Joe, have you got time to tell us something? We 
want to know all about that old Pinneo over on Crooked 
Point. Everything. I meant to ask you long ago.” 

“ Phin Pinneo, the pirate ? ” asked Mr. Embree resting 
his armpits on the gunnle of the small boat. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Wal, you just tack raound the pint of the island onct 
or twict whilst I make a change in me clothes and I’ll 
be glad to accommodate ye.” 


226 


BLUE HERON COVE 


This is what they heard that afternoon on the deck of 
Joseph Embree’s boat, the Pearlie T.: 

Phinneas Pinneo was an eccentric person (or in Joseph 
Embree’s words, a queer old cuss) who had squatted 
years and years ago on Boremus Beach, a lonely sandbar 
south of Blue Heron Island. 

He was a small man and dark-skinned, was supposed 
to be part furriner. He lived by himself and did not 
welcome visitors, never went from home except to Blue 
Heron Village to trade at Price’s store, always acted shy 
and scairt. Joe Embree had been anigh his house on 
Boremus onct and it was all made o’ ships’ parts. That 
was shortly before Pinneo moved away. 

Whether it was Montague City springing up and 
bringing so many folks to the island, or them stories the 
summer folks started — any ways Pinneo moved off 
Boremus to the Main. Nary person knew he had moved 
for quite some whiles; he loaded his housel-goods onto 
a garvey and carried them away at night. Next thing it 
was rumored he was fixed away on Crooked Point. 

What were them stories? Oh, it got rumored he 
tolled ships ashore with a lantern tossin’ on a mule’s 
head. He disremembered if Pinneo owned a mule, but 
the stories was unlikely. Disasters enough happened on 
that bar before Montague Light was built without any 
need to cause more. A ship would go ashore there and 
be two or three days batterin’ round in the surf and it 
was slow work for the underwriters. Pinneo, he didn’t 
seem like a pirit, on’y sometimes he got liquor from some- 
wheres and then he acted biggoty and bragged what he 
could do ef he was a mind to. 

Mr. Embree had never visited the house on Crooked 


BOARDERS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM 227 

Point. He guessed few had. It was a hard place to 
reach ’count of there bein’ a big wide bog over the mash 
where the old crick was stopped up, and the riddle was, 
where Pinneo’s house stood, and how he reached it him- 
self. It was known he kep’ a boat and it was supposed 
he carried clams and oysters to folks up the coast off and 
on. Embree had saw his sail onct or twict early in the 
morning, in fact, had seen it one morning about two 
months back about sunrise tackin’ up-channel towards 
the draw — a patched sail and an old garvey and a feller 
settin’ by the tiller he could a sworn was Pinneo. 

“ He tacked away up-channel and through the draw 
and I ain’t laid eye upon him sence. I lost my clam rake 
the same day. Yes, they do say bad luck comes along of 
sightin’ that there sail but I don’t hold much with luck, 
good or bad. They’s no reason for Pinneo to be orn’ry 
to me for I never was orn’ry to him. I been dost ’nough 
to him to holler onct or twict and I always hollered 
* Hullo, Phin,’ same as I would any other feller. But 
I ain’t crossed his bows as dost as that in fifteen year, 
maybe. 

“ I’ve heerd they was curious things inside his house — 
handsome chairs made of gold and velvet, and lookin’ 
glasses in gold frames and all kinds o’ heathen images. 
Maybe some Sunday I’ll run up on Crooked Point and 
invite myself to call on him.” 


CHAPTER XX 


THIRD EXPEDITION 

It was two weeks after seeing Joe Embree that they 
set sail on the trip they had thought and talked about 
every day since then. 

If they roamed wild that July and made their own 
plans without asking advice of Miss Janet or Dan there 
were many reasons to explain it. Dan was away at the 
pier all day, for he had to keep a constant surveillance 
over the lazy, mutinous workmen that had been assigned 
to him for this piece of work. The evenings too, now 
that the house was full of strangers, he often spent with 
some young fellows he knew at Montague Beach. 

Miss Janet Price never had a minute to herself any 
more. When night came she was thankful to be too 
tired to worry, for another letter had come from the 
Trenton lawyer saying that a flaw had been discovered 
in the title to their land. But no news came from the 
yacht Harpoon. 

She thought too that it was best for the children to 
be away on the bay, out of range of questions and 
curiosity. 

Mrs. Pifflngton had developed a habit of catechising 
the new boarder whenever she could find a chance. Mrs. 
Piflington was a tall, thin lady with a very long nose, 
which had an unfortunate way of poking into other 
people’s affairs. Her eyes too seemed to be trained to 
228 


THIRD EXPEDITION 229 

see around corners and spy out something that was not 
really there. 

“ Ladies,” she began one day about this time, “ I am 
more and more convinced there is some mystery about 
that child/’ 

Mrs. Bradshaw and the lady from Philadelphia had 
very little to do that day and wanted something to talk 
about. 

“ Really, Mrs. Piffington. You don’t say so? ” 

“ Anything objectionable , do you think?” 

“ I fear so. I have my own suspicions. I have had 
experience with persons who had a mystery in their 
past, both in this country and abroad, and I have never 
failed to sift the secret out. Some of them were mem- 
bers of very distinguished families. One was a countess. 
It would be strange indeed if I could not sift a Sadie 
Wienerwurst.” 

“ Pray don’t ! ” cried the lady from Philadelphia rais- 
ing her hand as if to ward off a blow. She meant, don’t 
mention that dreadful name; its commonness made her 
shudder. 

“ I think perhaps I had better not let my little ones 
play with her,” said Mrs. Bradshaw. 

Play with the Bradshaw children, indeed! Didn’t 
Roger and Stephanie have to concoct a new detour to the 
dock every morning to escape from them ? 

“We see you, Roger! We see you, Sadie! Where 
are you going? What have you got in that basket? 
Have you got peanut butter? Our mama says we can 
eat peanut butter. Why do you take your lunch and go 
out in the boat ? Can we come in your boat ? ” 

On the day of the great expedition they eluded the 


230 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Bradshaws and set sail with all conditions favorable, a 
fair wind, a flood tide, and Miss Janet’s permission for 
them to make a day of it. However, Crooked Point had 
not been mentioned to her. 

August had come, with its hazy skies, its warm south 
winds and its — mosquitoes! The water was the only 
place for comfort now. When Stephanie had slapped 
the last stow-away mosquito on her ankle and the extra 
breeze that waited by Big Bonnet Island took charge of 
their sprit sail they settled down with faces toward the 
big channel and forgot Blue Heron troubles. 

Several times in the past weeks they had cruised up 
near Crooked Point to reconnoiter. It was hard to tell 
where Crooked Point was, for the line of flat meadows 
seemed unbroken. A lonely, wooded, uninhabited bit of 
coast it looked. At night after dark Stephanie thought 
of it with shivers and hoped that Roger would give up 
the trip but by daylight she was ready again to go in 
search of Pirate Pinneo. For Roger had fully decided 
that Pinneo would put them on the track of what they 
wanted. 

To-day there was a brisk south breeze and the tide ran 
high. If it had not been at flood just as the Susan R. 
stood about to make a certain spot on the shore every- 
thing might have been different for everybody. The 
flow, still running in, carried them up into the very 
meadows of Crooked Point. 

There the Susan lay over on her side and Roger 
grabbed the sail and rolled it up and they scrambled out. 
Their shoes sank into matted sea-wrack through which 
the tide was creeping and their footprints behind them 
filled with water. Mosquitoes began to swarm around 


THIRD EXPEDITION 


231 

their legs. Presently the water deepened; it became a 
wide swamp. At flood tide the bay flowed over the 
meadow into the swamp, as to-day, and went swirling 
lazily around the wading tufts of grass. 

“ I guess we don’t go any further,” Roger said. He 
poked in front of him with a stick. “ It’s not so shallow. 
Maybe the Susan would float if we could pull her over 
here.” 

Somehow they did manage to drag their boat across 
that portion of the point they had traversed on foot and 
at length she righted herself in the shallow lake. As 
they waded out after her she floated and slid from their 
hands into deeper water. 

“ It is a kind of lake — Mosquito Lake, I guess. Come, 
climb in.” 

Stephanie scrambled aboard and crept out on the 
forward end. 

“ I think it is deeper over there yet,” she said, pointing 
to a distant clump of bushes. Roger pushed the boat, 
wading deep, and they slowly crossed the wide, still 
marsh. 

“ Why, there’s a kind of current here ! ” 

It flowed sluggishly toward the thicket of marshelder 
bushes. When they had rounded this they understood. 

“ Sadie, this is Crooked Crick ! ” 

The swamp shelved off suddenly into deep brown 
water, very still, except for a lazy ripple which flowed, 
curiously enough, up-stream. Here it was a wide lagoon. 
Further on its banks drew together and it became a creek, 
like Grassy Run. Only it was dead, deserted, drowsy, 
in the morning sun; even the water with its shelving 
pools seemed deserted of all life. 


232 


BLUE HERON COVE 


It was true that they had managed to find their way 
into the almost stagnant pond which had been a creek 
flowing into the bay until its mouth was stopped up in 
a storm flood. A swamp now covered the meadow but 
they had chanced upon this deeper water-way leading 
back inland. And now for the first time they looked 
behind them and thought of their return. 

By standing in the boat they could see, far behind at 
the horizon, a tiny white patch or two, which were yacht 
sails on Great Swallow Bay. All around them was salt 
marsh. Not an oyster hut or haystack broke its flatness 
until it began to mix with the outer spurs of forest. 

“ The tide will be out a mile before we get back.” 

“ You think Pirate Pinneo’s house is much more 
far?” 

“ Don’t know. Can’t see any house from here. It 
must be up there toward the woods.” 

Stephanie shaded her eyes and stared toward the 
gloomy woods. “ Perhaps there is, at all, no house. 
Perhaps we are better not to try.” 

For a minute Roger leaned upon his pole listening to 
the stillness. Then he gave a great push that shot them 
well up-stream. 

“ All this summer we’ve been hearing about Pirate 
Pinneo. And now we’ve landed on Crooked Point where 
they said you couldn’t, and we’ve found Crooked Crick 
that’s been lost for years. I say let’s make a thorough 
job of this.” 

The shores of Crooked Crick began slowly to slip by. 
Every twenty feet or so it earned its name by making 
a hairpin turn. The banks grew higher, the current 
swifter up-stream. Suddenly their boat slipped sidewise. 


THIRD EXPEDITION 


233 


“ Hullo ! This is where the current runs to.” 

A ditch branched off to the right here, northward, 
turning and disappearing amongst reeds and elders. 

“ The crick empties into that ditch from both ways. 
I wonder — could it be an outlet? It’s wide enough for 
a small boat.” 

It was sultry to-day on Crooked Crick. Mosquitoes 
lay in wait along its shores — greenhead flies too that stuck 
and clung to wet-stockinged legs. But all these pests 
were forgotten when the first signs of human habitation 
showed along the way. 

“ See that old eel basket? ” 

“ Yes, and there a post, has on it an iron ring.” 

“ Corks from an old dragnet.” 

“ Piles of oyster shells.” 

With rising excitement they greeted each proof that 
living persons had been here before them. Suddenly 
as they rounded a jutting bank Stephanie cried: 

“ Look, Roger, look ! ” 

They both stood up from their seats, for there ahead 
were a landing and a boat. 

It was only a platform of rotting planks, sagging in the 
stream, and an old scow with one end high amongst the 
grasses and the other buried under water. A willow tree 
grew over both. To its trunk other boats had once been 
fastened, for there were cleats and a dangling end of 
rusty chain. Behind the willow something that might 
be a path tunneled off into the thicket of marshelder 
bushes. 

Roger swung the Susan in beside the landing, caught 
hold of a willow shoot and laid down his pole. 

“ You think we got there, Roger? ” 


234 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ I think we better tie up here and see.” 

But they did not step ashore at once. It was almost 
noon. Cloudless blue stretched overhead. The breeze 
had gone down and along shore the high grasses, which 
were in blossom and had fringed beards hanging from 
their spikes, barely quivered. The line of forests to the 
west shimmered in a haze. 

A scuffle sounded in the weeds. It was only two or 
three yellow-legs winging to some spot even more undis- 
turbed than this. 

“ Come on. Mosquitoes will eat us up if we stay 
here.” 

They tied their painter to the old willow and plunged 
at once into the crooked path. 

It led down through swampy ground, then took a turn 
upward and brought them out on a sort of low plateau 
from which they could see far and wide. There was the 
bay, pale blue in the distance, with miles of yellow-green 
salt meadows in between. Here were the beginnings of 
the woods — willow, scrub-oak, pine. Quite near a thick 
grove of trees and scrub. The path had lost itself. 

“ What's that ? At the far corner of those trees, 
above a long pine branch ? ” 

Stephanie looked and saw the gable of a low gray 
house. 

They caught their breaths and clutched each other. 
Even Roger at that moment felt like turning back. No 
smoke rose above the trees and not a sound except the 
whisper of wind in grass and trees disturbed the quiet. 

Very slowly they went on. Here was the path again, 
going down-hill, and it was paved with crumbling oyster 
shells. 


THIRD EXPEDITION 


235 


“ Remember,” muttered Roger. He meant, remember 
that they had agreed to greet Pirate Pinneo, no matter 
if he ran out with a gun, in the same friendly way that 
Joe Embree recommended : “ Hullo, Phin.” 

Now the brush grew thick. They pushed aside some 
branches and came up, smack, against a clapboard wall. 

“ That way,” Roger whispered, giving Stephanie a 
little prod so that she turned ahead along the wall. He 
had a piece of marshelder bush which he was waving 
around both of them to drive away mosquitoes. Sud- 
denly Stephanie faced round and plunged into this wav- 
ing branch, her eyes wild and both hands uplifted. 

“ Ach, ach ! Away ! Run, Roger, run ! ” 

“ What is it ? What did you see ? ” 

“ A lady stand wiz back against the wall. One 
Gr — rosse Frau , so tall und fat.” The forgotten words 
tumbled out unconsciously. " Schnell, ehe she shall turn 
and snatch at us.” 

Roger wheeled and took one step in panicky retreat. 

But this was not doing the thing up thorough — to run 
away from the very door. 

“ Sadie, you get behind me, so if anything does 
happen.” * 

He stepped forward, then stopped short. 

This wall was not a wall but a boat’s side, curving 
toward a sort of prow. It had a row of portholes high 
up and a railing at the top, and there in front 

He laughed shakily, out loud. 

“ Why, Sadie, that thing at the bow is a wooden 
figurehead.” 


CHAPTER XXI 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 

She was a fine (though stout) seven-foot-high figure 
of a woman. Against the front of the house, or the 
bow of the boat (whichever you choose to name it) her 
back was planted, and with head held high she stared, 
not quite directly forward, but in a nor’-by-easterly di- 
rection, so fixedly that one instinctively glanced to see 
what the wooden lady was rubbering at. Only a marsh- 
elder bush out on the open point, apparently. But she 
fixed on the bush, by some trick of painting which the 
gales of sixty years had failed to wash out, a look of 
alert, vigilant watchfulness. 

She wore a low-necked wooden dress, full in the skirt. 
The corsage was carved in lace points with ostrich tips on 
the shoulders. One hand hung at her side. With the 
other she was lifting her skirt just enough to display an 
elaborate wheel trimming on her petticoat and the scal- 
loped top of an old-fashioned gaiter shoe. This foot 
seemed to be stepping forward. The whole effect was 
that, if what she suspected of that marshelder bush ever 
really materialized, she would set off at once to see 
about it. 

The intruders stood in front of her and took her all 
in. There she stood, presiding over this wide silence, 
this extraordinary building. Wild creepers had crossed 
236 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 


237 


the oyster-shell path and one climbing tendril just touched 
the lady's pendant hand. 

Indeed, there was no lack of evidence that it was a 
place deserted. What had once been open space along 
the sides was choked with underbrush — bayberry, poke- 
berry, golden-rod, Virginia creeper, blackberry, sweet 
fern, wild rose, and grass. Paint had faded, mouldings 
sprung ; everything wore an abandoned look. 

The building (or boat) lay east and west, with the 
prow end toward the east. Probably there was once a 
clear view from here across the point to Great Swallow 
Bay. Its blue water showed much nearer than the new- 
comers had expected. 

It was no place to linger, here at the lady's feet, for 
mosquitoes swarmed about them in clouds, in the still, hot 
noon air. 

Hurriedly they picked their way around the bow, half- 
wanting to mutter “ Excuse me," for going between her- 
self and that confidential bush of hers, and passed along 
the north side of the structure. 

It was like a boat — all boat in front, with an old gray 
shanty lashed on outlandishly behind. Or better to ex- 
press it, this canal-boat affair seemed to have backed up 
kerplunk against an inoffensive old shack in the grove 
and there stuck fast. 

A window in the north side of the shanty was closed 
with a wooden shutter. From the roof an elbow of 
stove-pipe leaned over as if to see what was going on 
below. At the rear they came finally to the door, which 
had sand and brown drift blown across its sill. 

Stephanie broke the silence, observing sotto voce: 

“ Pirate Pinneo is out." 


238 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Rather. Been out quite a while — more’n a year I 
reckon. Isn’t this old craft the queerest proposition ? ” 

“ Is it truly then a ship ? How has he sailed it so far 
across the land ? ” 

“ I don’t think it’s any ship — only built to look like 
one. That old figurehead is real, though. That’s the 
witch they told about. Whew! but these skeets are 
fierce ! ” 

They walked through deep grass to the door and found 
it locked. 

They stood there, stamping and flapping branches 
round their shoulders and ankles and grumbling in 
hushed tones. 

“ The grass is smoking with ’em. You ought to see 
your back — it’s black. There, I’ve switched ’em off.” 

“ So — they come round in front instead. Ooh ! They 
make me just crazy over them.” 

“ If we could only get in here. I’d love to see the 
inside, wouldn’t you ? I guess old Pinneo’s moved away. 
Swoosh ! Oh, dear, my legs ! ” 

“ Roger, I am completely eaten. My switch from 
beating them is broken. I must have another, quick.” 

A tough, old prickly holly bush grew beside the door. 
In desperation Stephanie thrust her hand in among its 
branches, then snatched it back and cried reproach- 
fully. 

“ This bayberry is full wiz pins.” 

“ It’s a holly bush. HulAo ! What’s this ? ” 

From its shaken boughs a large brass key attached to 
a string had tumbled at their feet. 

“ Why — why — I believe it’s the key to this door ! Hid 
in the holly bush when he went away, but the string 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 


239 

rotted and you shook it out. Great luck! Now we can 
get in ! ” 

The key turned rustily. As persons pursued by mos- 
quitoes are wont to do they squeezed in with backward 
flappings and a hasty slamming of the door. Darkness 
— musty smells — the chirping of a cricket. That was all, 
till Roger remembered he had matches and struck one. 

Directly in front of them they saw a candle on a table. 
Roger lighted it and the candlestick was the first of the 
many curious things they looked upon inside those walls : 
— it was a cork float with a hole in the middle and a 
fish-hook for a handle. 

Roger took this in his hand and by its light they began 
to look around. 

The yellow flame twinkled back at them from dark, 
polished surfaces. A chest, cabinets of drawers and 
parts of one wall, which seemed to be composed entirely 
of doors, were all handsome somber woods. The heavy 
dark door in the midst must open upon the other portion 
of the building. This room was merely the shanty. 
Everything in it was in perfect order. 

The table on which they found the candle was a 
curious structure ’.—Hogshead top neatly covered with 
sheet copper; one ebony leg carved elaborately in acan- 
thus leaves; one turned pine leg from a cheap pine table; 
one piece of brass railing; one cedar branch with the twigs 
lopped off. The table rested squarely, however, and did 
not joggle as they leaned on it. 

On either side the window stood great chests of 
drawers and between them a carved chest of some black 
wood. Next came the east wall, all doors. It was a 
patchwork of doors in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps 


240 


BLUE HERON COVE 


the large door with lockers at each side had been torn 
entire from some cabin and the other motley cupboards 
ingeniously joined around it to cover the whole wall. 

At the west wall was a stove that had railings round 
the top of it and curious arrangements for washing 
dishes. Next the door the porcelain tank and basin from 
a modern stateroom were fastened against the wall. 

“ They have ’em like this on the big liners. Dan takes 
me to the piers sometimes.” 

“ I go on liners too but I saw nothing like it.” 

“ What liner did you go on ? ” 

“ The Adonis. The Dulcetania. I forget what more.” 

“ Why did you go ? To look around ? ” 

“ But no. To sail the ocean across, I go on the 
Dulcetania ” 

“ What! You been to Europe? You never told me 
so. Did your father take you? Was it fun? Did you 
see any kings and queens?” 

Stephanie shrugged. She was fingering a curious ar- 
ticle hanging by the door. “ I forget. Wiz Frauleins 
and the Tante I go and I am always ill and it is most 
stu -pidd.” 

“ Well, I’d think it would be great .” For a moment 
he stood staring at his companion through his round 
spectacles as at a greater curiosity than anything else 
in Pirate Pinneo’s house. 

Dan had forbidden him to question her. He had said 
it was a thing only a cad would do, under the circum- 
stances. Yes, but what were the circumstances? He 
wasn’t a cad, of course, but sometimes she told things of 
her own accord and they were always extraordinary 
things — a father that lived in another hotel, a lot of dif- 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 


241 


ferent German women to teach her but they never seemed 
to have taught her anything worth while. He knew 
nothing about girls; he never went to parties. Brother 
Morwood didn’t know any ladies, so naturally there were 
no invitations for himself, as these things seemed always 
managed by the women. Of course, one saw girls here 
and there, and fellows at school had sisters. Some small 
girls in the city went out to walk with nurses. Others 
rode in limousines. But he was convinced you’d never 
•find one of these with a name like Sadie Wiener- 
wurst. 

“ Roger, I ask you three times what is this vegetable 
wiz nossing in her? ” 

“ It’s a gourd dipper. And here’s a pail hollowed out 
of solid wood. Look at those chairs made of sections 
of a big mast. Some contriver, isn’t he? Where do 
you suppose he’s gone ? I’d think he’d rather stay right 
here in this dindy little house.” 

Over the stove hung a row of strange utensils. There 
were long irons with arrow points and wooden handles ; 
there were curved knives with two handles; Roger lifted 
gingerly something like a poker and it had an odd little 
movable blade on the end. 

Stephanie’s eyes enlarged with a grim idea. “You 
think they are for killing persons, yes?” 

“ No. But for killing whales, maybe, and cutting 
them up. I’ve seen pictures like ’em. Say, but this 
place is better than the best museum in the United 
States.” 

“Museum? As the Metropolitan ? But that has noss- 
ing nice at all.” 

One wall, as has been said, was all of cupboards, fitted 


242 


BLUE HERON COVE 


round a big black walnut door. These cupboard doors 
of odd shapes and construction were not to be resisted. 
Just a crack they opened them and peered and sniffed 
inquiringly. 

Stephanie half-closed her eyes. “ Of the sea it smells,” 
she murmured. 

“ And of ships,” said Roger. 

Ah, if those cupboards could have spoken! If the 
galley stove had stepped out in front and called the 
roll : — “ Cupboards, what do you know of life below 
decks ? You satin rosewood panel inlaid with ivory ? ” 

“ Here, sir ! Rare wines, pistols, and sealed papers 
from the captain’s cabin of an old-time sailing ves- 
sel.” 

“ You big pine doors painted green? ” 

“ Here, sir ! Spoiled pork and wooden coffee for men 
before the mast.” 

“ Here, sir ! Quinine and epsom salts.” 

“ Here, sir ! Sperm candles, lamp-oil, oil soap.” 

“ Here, sir ! Stores for a menhaden fishing steamer 
off Blue Heron beach.” 

“ Here, sir ! Ladies’ bonnets, shoes, and hairpins, on a 
coastwise liner.” 

And from that battered oak with the broken lock a 
hoarse mutter: 

“ Here, sir ! Cutlasses, long-knives, and a brace o’ 
pistols.” 

But no real voices sounded here, only the whispers of 
the two explorers. The cupboards were full of stores. 
They thought it wrong to rummage and could only guess 
at things by candlelight. 

“ Perhaps next time we come- 


-” murmured Roger. 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 


243 


He held the candle high and his thoughts were all for that 
black walnut door. Stephanie shrank a little. “ You go 
to open it ? ” 

“ Yes. That’s the boat part in there. It might be, 
you know, that somebody’s done for Pirate Pinneo and 
left his body in the forward hold. I’ve been thinking of 
it all the time. It’s our duty to investigate.” 

With these cheerful words he laid his hand upon the 
wrought brass knob and turned it. 

It opened at once with a creak and a sprinkle of fine 
dust. A draft blew out their light. 

But it was no longer needed. They were in a large 
light room. 

“ Who is that ? ” cried Stephanie stumbling back in 
fright. 

It was only the reflection of a girl in a blue gingham 
dress and a boy holding a candlestick. A huge mirror, 
high, gilt-framed, resting on a narrow marble shelf, 
commanded this strange room into which they had ven- 
tured a few steps. 

What was it like — this room? 

The light came from a row of round port sashes, high 
on each side. A length of fine crimson carpet stretched 
to the far end of the room. There was a skylight of 
green, heavy glass in the ceiling and on each side of it 
wooden hatches, with ladders nailed against the walls 
leading toward the hatches. Along each wall furniture 
was arranged in stately order — red plush sofas in the 
corners, tufted red plush chairs, four great oil paintings 
of sailing ships on the pine walls. 

It was not these state saloon monstrosities, however, 
that the newcomers advanced to look at, on tip-toe. In 


244 


BLUE HERON COVE 


between the chairs were old cabinets of teakwood and 
blackwood, sideboards and carved stands, and on these 
were small objects, carefully set forth. 

No wonder they forgot Blue Heron village far away, 
the falling tide, the great salt marsh, their lunch under 
the seat of a sneakbox in lost Crooked Crick. 

What was Pirate Pinneo ? A savant ? A collector of 
rare bijou f At any rate he had a taste for such articles 
as these : 

Chessmen, checkers, cribbage-boards , puzzles, and 
games, carved from ivory, oriental woods, jade. 

Little models of ships, perfect in every part, sometimes 
with wooden skipper and crew, but the sails and cordage 
hung ragged, for time had rotted them. 

Curious shells — all Tiffany colors; beads from China, 
Malay, and Peru; husks of fruit, dried sea flowers. 

Images with ugly faces, little ivory animals, and tiny 
men with umbrellas, ladies in two-wheeled carriages, tea 
sets small enough for these. 

Great teeth with pictures scratched and colored on 
them. 

Flowers made of birds’ feathers. Sprays of flowers 
made of little shells. 

Bracelets and cups and scent bottles and jewelry and 
toys of jade, sandalwood, fish bone, fruit pits, soap, 
copper, brass and silver, lava, mother of pearl. 

Curious knives. Daggers — a great curved one exactly 
like those in the Pirates' Own Book. 

In short, here was every sort of thing, made, collected, 
picked up in foreign ports and carried round the world, 
by sailormen of every rank and nation. Some of these 
trinkets had lain long in the sea. Others must have been 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 


245 


taken whole from seamen’s boxes — or — from the pockets 
in their clothing, who could say ? 

Roger and Stephanie looked and looked, softly ex- 
claimed, and touched Pirate Pinneo’s playthings one after 
another with respectful marvel and delight. 

Suddenly, however, whether it was the light slanting 
more redly through the ground-glass panes, or their for- 
gotten appetites, they looked at each other and pulled 
up with a jerk. 

Roger drew out his watch. “ It’s four o'clock! ” 

“ And we eat yet no lunch.” 

“ And the tide will be out, out, out. And we’ve got 
to drag our boat miles over the flats. Unless there is 
some other way.” He glanced toward the ladder and the 
hatch. “ That goes up to the roof that looked like a 
deck. Perhaps I could see the Crick from there.” 

Stephanie sat down in a tufted chair to wait. The 
chair smelled uncommonly musty. There was a queer 
smell through all the room but when Roger unfastened a 
hook and pushed up the wooden trap a breeze fragrant 
of pines came in. She wished Roger would come back. 
There were shadows behind the great musty pieces of 
furniture. For some reason she half-imagined herself 
back at the Juilliard in her school-room on a long, dull 
afternoon when every one had forgotten her, when she 
wrote in her journal, “ I wish Herr Voter lived by me.” 

She heard Roger’s step above and then he called to her 
in a queer voice: 

“ Sadie!” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Come up here — quick ! ” 

Up on the deck of Pirate Pinneo’s houseboat, or boat- 


246 BLUE HERON COVE 

house, there was a splendid outlook. Here were the 

pine woods casting long, dark shadows. There was the 

bay, and an arm of it not more than half a mile away 

to the northeast. She could see yacht sails in the 

channel. 

“ Come on in here.” 

Roger was in the little deckhouse — a tiny square struc- 
ture with windows all around. He had found the door 
not securely fastened and had readily pushed in. This 
was where Pirate Pinneo slept; a sort of bunk ran along 
one side. There were lockers and a hanging lamp. It 
was, like all else here, neatly built. 

Roger stood in the corner bending over something — 
absorbed in it. Stephanie came beside him. He had his 
elbows on a little shelf and was tracing with his finger 
some writing on a scrap of paper. The paper was 
pinned to the green felt lining of an open old-fashioned 
writing case. The pins were slightly rusted. 

Roger straightened up, holding his forefinger on the 
paper. 

“ See here ! ” he said. His face was pale. “ Sadie, 
here’s the buried treasure.” 

It was almost dark and Dan was waiting at the wharf 
with a lantern when the tiny sail he was watching for 
came gliding round the end of Little Islands. 

They had followed the secret outlet from Crooked 
Crick and it proved to be a short-cut, but at its mouth 
they felt a sudden, ominous jolt and crack. Something 
sharp had stove in the bottom of their boat. Afterward 
they found it was an ancient, rusty anchor, point-up in 
the ditch. 


PIRATE PINNEO’S HOUSE 


247 


Only a small hole was stove in the Susan but Roger 
had to bail, all the way home. 

“Anything the matter ?” began Dan. “Miss Janet’s 
worried stiff. You mustn’t stay out late like this. 
Where’ ve you been all day? ” 

Roger showed Dan the damage done to his boat but 
managed to get off to bed without many explanations. 
In the hall after supper a short whispered conversation 
passed between him and Stephanie, and the paper, which 
gave clear directions for the finding of treasure buried on 
Crooked Point, passed into her keeping for the night. 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE BOARDERS THINK THEY HAVE 
FOUND SOMETHING 

Do not forget that the year of this story was 1914, 
the beginning of the war. 

Even in the hamlet of Blue Heron it stirred excite- 
ment and consternation, as everywhere in the world. 
The newspapers were full of scareheads. It must have 
been from these that Mrs. Piffington gathered an idea — 
an idea that probably seemed fantastic even to herself at 
first. But some persons have a talent for making brick 
without straw and building with these brickless bricks 
whole imaginary structures, which appear to them more 
and more real as they grow. They do become substantial 
enough to hide the real truth sometimes, and Mrs. Pif- 
fington would probably be the dullest of all in routing out 
actual trickery and danger. 

Mrs. Piffington’s idea was this: — That Sadie Wiener- 
wurst must be a German spy ! 

“ My dear, it is all explained about that child. Every- 
thing points to it. No wonder I took such a dislike to 
her.” Mrs. Piffington came close to the lady from Phila- 
delphia and whispered the two words. 

The latter in her alarm sought old Mr. Beagle of 
Trenton. 

“ Can it be true ? Can we possibly have under the 
same roof with us a person of that character ? ” 

248 


WHAT THE BOARDERS THINK 


249 


“Very probable. Very probable. Ver-y probable, 
ma’am. The papers are full of just such cases. See 
these headlines in the Trenton Gazette: ‘ Conspiracy 
Scare on the Hinterland. Tale of Plot to Blow Her 
Up.’ ‘ Arrests in England. Plots Revealed.’ ‘ Women 
Held as Suspects.’ What do you read in your Philadel- 
phia paper ? ” 

“ Sir, I read nothing that occurs north of Market 
Street.” 

“ Very foolish, ma’am. Very foolish. Ver-y foolish, 
if you’ll pardon me for saying so. Better get your mind 
on this. Take this very case. Take the facts. Mrs. 
Piffington claims she pointed them out first but I noticed 
the case myself. I’m a lawyer, ma’am. Here’s a child 
comes down here by night. From nobody knows where. 
Hoboken, you say? Just question her and see how much 
she knows about Hoboken. Imposes herself on Prices. 
Prices are easy — a child can pull the wool over their eyes. 
She gets the best room and all the attention. Enlists the 
Smith boys. I distrust the Smith boys — noisy fellows. 
She spends her days out of sight, talks broken English, 
refuses to answer questions, looks as guilty as a dog in 
the pantry, makes signs to Roger Smith. But above all, 
ma’am, look at the name. Look at the name. Look-at- 
the-name — Wienerwurst.” 

Mrs. Bradshaw called Lily Washington, the colored 
girl she had brought to Blue Heron to help take care of 
the baby. 

“ Lily, don’t let any of the children play with that girl. 
Don’t wheel the baby near her. Don’t let him take his 
nap on that side of the house. We have reason to think 
there is something queer about her.” 


250 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“Laws, Mis Bradsher! Well now, Mis Bradsher, de 
chillun can’t get her to play wiv ’em, nohow. De 
chillun is a-worryin’ an’ a worryin’ afta Sadie an’ Roga 
continual, but Sadie an’ Roga dey jest flee away f’om 
’em. Yes, ma’am. You don’t need to caution nobody 
’bout dat. Sadie and Roga, dey wouldn’t play wiv 
Willie an’ Freddie an’ Irene ef you was to set de po-leece 
atter ’em.” 

Mrs. Pifflngton would not permit any one to forget 
the matter. She called a meeting on the upper veranda. 

“ You are all aware by this time that we have under 
this roof a person whose appearance, conduct, and affilia- 
tions have made me uneasy for some time.” 

“ Pardon me. Pardon me. Par-don me, ma’am. 
Don’t forget that my legal mind, basing conclusions on 
cold facts, showed you your real premises.” 

“ And you know I was upset from the very moment I 
heard she had the south chamber. I wrote Mr. Brad- 
shaw about it.” 

“ Her name,” said the lady from Philadelphia, “ was to 
me in itself a warning.” 

“ My friends,” interposed Mrs. Piffington. “ Let us 
put aside this discussion and bend all our energies to 
gathering evidence. That is our duty now, in order to 
bring this matter to a head. Then we will wait upon 
Janet Price in a body and lay the matter before her. Let 
us each take one member of this household and try to 
extract information from them. I would suggest that 
Mr. Beagle, being a lawyer, might extract something 
from Miss Janet Price. The lady at my right will per- 
haps be willing to observe Dan Smith from a distance. 
Mrs. Bradshaw, perhaps your little ones might draw 


WHAT THE BOARDERS THINK 


251 


something from Roger at their play. I intend to put a 
few questions to Cap’n Price. Are you all agreed? 
That is excellent. Now I must tell you that I have some- 
thing to report already. Let us draw our chairs closer 
together : 

“ Roger Smith and that child have an important paper 
secreted in this house. I don’t know what kind of paper 
but doubtless a map of Great Swallow Bay showing the 
best way for warships to get in. You know those two 
have spent all their time on the bay since we came. The 
other evening they came home very late; it was twilight 
when they landed and Janet Price had sent Dan Smith to 
the dock with a lantern to meet them. They seemed to 
be tired out. And they had this paper. I overheard 
them whispering about it in the hall. As my door was 
slightly ajar I caught the first words, which were, ‘ Where 
shall we hide it so the boarders can’t find it? ’ ” 

Mrs. Piffington looked around as if to say, “ Can any 
one doubt me now ? ” 

Her fellow boarders agreed that things should cer- 
tainly be looked into. They promised to watch and 
report as she had suggested. It stirred a breath of ex- 
citement in the heavy August weather and gave them 
something to talk about when they rocked on the porch 
after tea. 

Dan Smith was puzzled to notice, as he went in and out 
or sat at table, a lorgnette directed upon him in a steady, 
unwinking scrutiny. He felt of his tie and his coat 
collar, was sure he had washed his face before din- 
ner. 

“ Boxer, have you any idea what there is so attractive 
about me lately? The lady from Philadelphia’s got my 


252 


BLUE HERON COVE 


number and she’s trying to memorize it. Maybe I re- 
mind her of somebody.” 

“ I didn’t notice,” said Roger absent-mindedly. 

“ You didn’t! How do you miss it? I walk up from 
town and she’s craning her neck over the railing, come 
up here to our room and see a door open and two eyes 
at the crack. She doesn’t even read the news any 
more without goggling at me over the top of the 
paper.” 

“ Paper ! ” exclaimed Roger with a start. “ What 
paper ? ” 

" Philadelphia Evening Ledger ” answered Dan, look- 
ing at his brother curiously. Roger took no notice but 
remained at the window lost in cogitation. 

Mrs. Piffington was not able to corner Cap’n Price for 
several days. With the arrival of the boarders the old 
man betook himself to a bench against the south wall of 
the Life Saving Station and there in peace he smoked 
his pipe, beat everybody at checkers, and was the final 
authority on all that had happened in this county a long 
time ago. 

In the evening, however, he sometimes sat solitary in 
the lower gallery with his chair tipped back against the 
front of his one-time store where he had used to sit 
in palmier days and lay down the law to Blue Heron 
village assembled on this porch. 

Mrs. Piffington should have known better than to 
tackle him there, but curiosity makes people bold. 

“ Ah, here you are, Cap’n Price, all by yourself and 
wishing no doubt for company. But Miss Janet is out, 
and so you’ll have to put up with my poor society.” 

“ It ’pears as though I would.” 


WHAT THE BOARDERS THINK 


253 


“ This charming view ! I suppose it is all just as it 
was thirty or forty years ago.” 

“ No, ma’am. They was less brush in front of the 
house and fewer gnats. Skeeters and gnats are biting 
bad right here to-night.” 

“ Are they ? Let us go inside then for our little talk, 
Cap’n Price.” 

“ I’m accustomed to ’em.” 

“ Oh, dear.” The lady drew her skirts round her 
ankles. “ What I was about to say is, what an interest- 
ing new inmate you have here this year.” 

“ I hain’t sighted any.” 

“ I mean the new boarder.” 

“ Boarders is all the same to me, ma’am, new or old. 
I’m accustomed to them also. When I ran foul o’ treach- 
ery five and thirty year ago I was in for more kinds 
o’ trouble than I dreamed of then. Maybe you never 
heard the true story of that matter, ma’am. It was 
like this: — Thomas Newbold and me was boyhood 
friends ” 

“ Oh, certainly, Cap’n Price. Yes, indeed. I know 
the story well and have great sympathy for you. But 
just now I’m so deeply interested in something else — 
this young girl that occupies the south chamber this sea- 
son — an attractive child but extremely reticent. What 
sort of antecedents has she? ” 

“ Ma’am?” 

“ Her family — who are they? Old friends of yours? 
Where is her home ? Who recommended Blue Heron to 
her? Are her parents living? What is her father’s 
business? What do you think she and Roger Smith go 
out in the boat for? She never seems to write letters. 


254 BLUE HERON COVE 

How do you account for that ? Do tell me all about her, 
Cap’n Price.” 

“ All about who? ” 

“ Why, this Sadie Wienerwurst.” 

“ Whinny-ups? ” 

“ No, Wienerwurst — Sadie Wienerwurst.” 

“ I never heard the name before.” 

Just then Miss Janet’s step sounded on the piazza. 

“ There’s Janey hailin’ me. She knows all about the 
boarders. It’s a cargo I don’t handle much and so don’t 
keep posted. Suppose you ask me daughter about this 
Mrs. Snigglefritz.” 

But the lady had nothing to say to Miss Janet on the 
subject. She had tried there before and failed. 

Roger had the Susan out of water for repairs, as Dan 
had insisted she must be put in perfect order before they 
sailed the bay again. He was doing the work himself, 
and as this kept him in one place for a long time, he 
was an easy prey for those favorites of his, the Bradshaw 
children. 

Roger paid no attention to the Bradshaw children and 
never answered their questions if he could help it. When 
they pressed him too hard he rebuffed them with some- 
thing like this : 

“ Say, Willie, did you hear about the fight on the 
street car ? ” 

“ What fight, Rodgie?” 

“ The conductor punched the ticket.” 

Or: 

“ Run quick, all of you or you’ll miss the fire.” 

“ Fire! What fire? Where?” 

“ In the stove.” 


WHAT THE BOARDERS THINK 


255 


The Bradshaw children were an easy prey for these 
ancient traps and admired Roger more each time they fell 
in. But now for many days he had worked away at his 
boat in silence, too deep in his own thoughts to ask them 
even if they’d heard about the row in the restaurant, 
when the coffee soaked the biscuit. 

They must have been dinning at him on the new sub- 
ject for some time without making him hear. At any 
rate he was startled by the words : 

“ Rodgie, why won’t you tell us why Sadie is a Ger- 
man spy ? ” 

“ What?” 

“ Our mama says Sadie is a German spy and she told 
us to make you tell us the secret.” 

“ Who told your mother that ? ” 

“ Mis’ Piffin’ton.” 

“Well, of all the — I’m going to tell Mrs. Piffington 

she’s a Of course I can’t tell her that, but I shall tell 

her just exactly where to get off. And looka here, if 

ever you kids say anything like that to me again I’ll ” 

He made a gesture with his fist and looked so fierce that 
the Bradshaws fled squealing. 

Old Mr. Beagle was the only one of the private inves- 
tigation committee who succeeded in getting results and 
these results he kept to himself. 

He had not acted in the matter at once for he hated 
the idea of taking the part assigned to him by Mrs. 
Piffington. But he too was curious and so one day when 
he brought home the morning mail and found in it two 
letters for Miss Janet Price he decided to try a little 
probing. 

One of the letters was from a Philadelphia law office, 


BLUE HERON COVE 


256 

the other a New York banking house. Mr. Beagle al- 
ways took a sly peek at every letter as he toddled home 
from the post-office. 

“ Letters. Letters. Let-ters. Two letters for Miss 
Janet Price. Gazette for me. Postal card for Mrs. 
Lavinia Piffington with picture of Grand Canon. ‘ Won- 
derful scenery. Will write from San Francisco.’ She 
got people traveling in the West? D. Smith, Engineer- 
ing News. Letter from Mr. Bradshaw. D’ye know, 
Miss Janet, I’ve thought it odd the little girl — you know, 
what’sername — Sadie — never gets any letters. How’d 
you account for that ? ” 

Mr. Beagle, fussing over his handful, had not seen 
Miss Janet flush at the sight of one letter and at the 
other turn pale and sink into a chair. They were in the 
summer dining-room, or old store, where Miss Janet had 
been laying out clean linen. 

She opened the Philadelphia letter and glanced through 
it first, and it shook in her hand. Then she took up the 
other. 

“ Whatsername — Sadie — is a peculiar child, ain’t she ? 
Very peculiar. German parentage, I take it. You may 
wonder how I found that out. I’m a lawyer, ma’am. 
Now how long have her parents lived in this country, 
Miss Janet? ” 

Mr. Beagle raised his head to look the witness in the 
eye and instantly dropped his papers in all directions. 

“ Miss Janet, ma’am ! Help, help! Cap’n! Mandy! 
Somebody! The woman’s fainted.” 

Several people came rushing in as he shouted — the 
maids from the kitchen, Mrs. Bradshaw. Miss Janet 
sat up in a minute saying she was all right but looking 


WHAT THE BOARDERS THINK 


257 

very white. In the flurry Mr. Beagle picked up the two 
letters and while they were in his hands took a hurried 
peek at both. 

The Philadelphia letter was the one he took to be the 
cause of Miss Janet’s upset. Something about “ flaw in 
your title,” “ act for dispossession,” etc. 

The New York letter puzzled him extremely. It ran 
as follows: 


Surety and Trust Company 
New York 

13 / 8 / 14 - 

Miss Janet Price, 

Blue Heron, New Jersey. 

Dear Madam : 

We have not answered your recent letters of inquiry 
because there was no news from the party on the Har- 
poon. At present we are under considerable anxiety. It 
is almost two months since any word has been received 
and we fear some accident. It has been reported that a 
German destroyer was active in those waters and as the 
captain and crew of the Harpoon are English seamen 
there might have been trouble. We are still hopeful of 
good news and will forward the first information we 
have regarding Mr. Alan Rand. 

Yours very truly, 

Frank C. Goodrich. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


DAN TRIES TO RAISE MONEY 

It was afternoon of a very hot Sunday. People who 
went out in the open crept slowly along with parasols 
over their heads. The mainland, distant islands, the 
town of Montague, seemed to float, quivering, in the 
lower sky. On the beach the sand was so hot it could 
be felt through leather-soled shoes. The yellow gravel 
of the village streets smelled stifling as it baked at 
midday. 

Over at the hotel the piazza was full of people taking 
naps, with fans and newspapers dropping from their 
hands, while the clatter of dishes at the rear slowly be- 
came less. At Cap’n Price’s also an attempt was being 
made to sleep away fried chicken and ice cream. 

Roger and Stephanie sat on the north steps of the lower 
porch, each with a swatter in hand, which they used on 
flies or to fan themselves with, as need might be. They 
sat with knees hunched up and they spoke together in low 
tones. 

“ It’s your turn to keep the paper for awhile.” 

“ But Miss Chanet looks everywhere in my room. I 
put him under the cover of the washstand and she 
changed the cover and said, ‘ What is this ? ’ and I said, 
* A letter of a pirate,’ but Miss Chanet is not thinking of 
it. Roger, what got into Miss Chanet, yet ? Since two 
258 


DAN TRIES TO RAISE MONEY 


259 


days ago when she was sick she is quite strange and often 
I think she has cried.” 

“ I know and she writes heaps of letters. I posted 
three in one day and she had me put ‘ special 5 stamps on 
them. Maybe it’s those Newbolds. Maybe the boarders 
make her sick. They do me. They’re too nosey.” 

“ Mrs. Piffington is nosier as any person I ever saw. 
And Roger, I think she has seen the paper. She ask me 
a most mean question.” 

“ What was it?” 

“ Never mind. But it is not any nice question.” 

“Aw, what was it? How can I tell she’s seen it? 
Go on.” 

“ She ask me, have I a letter from my father,” said 
Stephanie with a challenging look. 

Roger observed her meditatively. “ Don’t you ever 
get letters from your father ? ” 

Stephanie hung her head and muttered : “ No, not 
any.” 

Roger had given up the problem of Sadie’s past life, 
before she came to Blue Heron, with the general conclu- 
sion that it was “ some queer mix-up.” So he merely 
said: 

“ Well, I just as soon Brother Morwood never wrote 
to me. He just keeps asking if my eyes are well enough 
to study my algebra. But you think old Piffington meant 
our treasure letter?” 

“ Yes. She said, ‘ I saw Roger hand you last night a 
letter.’ I think it was that last time you gave me Pirate 
Pinneo’s letter to hide.” 

“ She’s an old nuisance. Well, never mind. It’s been 
hard waiting but now the Susan's most ready — I’ll have 


26 o 


BLUE HERON COVE 


her in the water to-morrow, stow her full of picks and 
shovels, and by Tuesday, anyway, we’re off. Hope the 
heat lets up. Now I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m 
going to copy Pirate Pinneo’s letter and we’ll just leave 
the real letter here. Because we don’t want to lose it 
overboard or have it blow away. Our proof would be 
gone then and Dan and everybody’d say, ‘ Pshaw, you 
dreamed it ! ’ No, we must find a good safe place and 
leave the real copy behind. Where d’you think we better 
hide it? ” 

“ I think not anywhere upstairs where the Bradshaws 
go. They go in my room and make a house wiz my 
mosquito bar. And Tuesday is cleaning day when the 
rooms are swept and Miss Chanet changes everything. 
Well, I don’t know what to do.” 

“ I’ll tell you a place I thought of. Under something 
that’s never moved and nobody’d ever think of it.” 
Roger leaned over and whispered. 

At this moment some one hailed them from the road. 
It was Cap’n Bill Pharo, trudging slowly up from the 
dock fanning himself with his old duck hat. 

“Whew! How’d ye enjoy this weather? Say, 
Rawger, is Dan away ? ” 

“ Yes, he went to Atlantic City in an auto yesterday.” 

“ Cornin’ back to-night ? ” 

“ I think so. Why ? ” 

Cap’n Bill hesitated, then came up close to the steps. 

“ Nothin’, only I just sailed up from Montague. Feller 
there told me Dan Smith’s men had been in town Satur- 
day night and he guessed they had took liquor out to the 
quarters too. I just thought I’d pass the news to Dannie. 
Ef he don’t get in till late you tell him, Rawger.” 


DAN TRIES TO RAISE MONEY 


261 


Roger waited till Cap’n Pharo had gone on. “ I shan’t 
tell him if he comes in late. I shan’t say a word till 
morning. And, Sadie, we won’t wait till Tuesday about 
Crooked Point. I’ll get up at five o’clock to-morrow 
so’s to have the Susan ready to start any minute. If 
what our paper says is true it’s likely we’ll all be rich. 
Then Dan won’t need to worry any more. He can go 
to college or do anything. We’ll help out Miss Janet 
and Cap’n and I’ll buy a shotgun of my own, I think, and 
a power boat. What’ll you get with yours ? ” 

“ Mine?” 

“ Your share of — you know — what we dig up?” 

“ So ? Shall there be for me a share ? ” 

“ Why, of course. We’ll be square about everything 
— and you’ll have had a big hand in the whole busi- 
ness.” 

Stephanie glanced at her brown fist and it was not as 
big as Roger’s own but she imagined it full of gold money 
and jewelry. She meditated. Six months ago when she 
had many possessions and few wishes it would have been 
harder to choose. 

“ A new sponge for the Susan. The old is so — so 
emaciated, yes? Crab-net for myself. And new bazing 
suit wizout a long skirt, which Miss Janet sews on mine.” 

“ Is that all? ” 

“ One other thing, when I got money for it. You 
think there is a little more ? ” 

“ Sure. Crab-nets and bathing suits don’t cost much 
and I intend to get a new sponge anyway.” 

“ So — I get enough and I go on the train once to New 
York to make a call on my Herr Vater when he is re- 
turned from that trip.” 


262 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Well, that’s easy too. Shall you stop in Hoboken? ” 

“ No,” said his companion blankly. 

Roger now went upstairs after the document which 
they had almost worn out with care in the last ten days. 
He extracted it from under the cover of his algebra, a 
very safe place which neither he nor any one else seemed 
liable to disturb. However Miss Janet’s tendency to 
clean and straighten things up made all upstairs risky. 

He brought the paper downstairs and called Sadie into 
the big room where the tables were spread for supper. 

“ Here it is.” He drew it from his coat and smoothed 
it out, and together they took a parting look. Except for 
this bit of paper the house on Crooked Point, with its 
furniture and playthings redeemed from the sea, its 
watching figurehead, its lookout on the roof where the 
writer of these very words had pinned his message before 
he went down the ladder and out of his door months 
ago — all these would seem too fantastic to be believed. 
But here under their eyes was his very writing: 

“ The stuff is were the figger is alookin in a trunk in 
a kaig. I alis intent to giv it up but sorta let it go till 
I herd they dug up the old mark and haf lawiers. No 
lawier wunt find me they needunt to look. I ain’t a pirit. 
Foks may say all they will I never told no boat in so help 
me. One skuner was a frensh bark of wines I lug tu 
frensh fellers out the serf myself. The goods in this 
house if ary person can find oners or clams of wreked 
vessels Count Pulasko , Osceola , or John C. Calhoun are 
welkim. I had my use and also plesure from same but 
a bad conshins is a uneesy mate and this mash doos not 
agree with my helth any more. Enny way Cap’n got 


DAN TRIES TO RAISE MONEY 263 

fooled. He ses sesee Fishhooks is about his size sesee, 
Fairwell to all, 

Phinneas Pinneo. 

The stillness of a broiling hot afternoon was over the 
house. Presumably the boarders napped. Cap’n was 
asleep, Miss Janet at afternoon church. 

“ See, I’ll slip it here. Nobody will ever think of 
this.” 

“ Hark,” said Stephanie. She thought she heard some 
one in the long pantry. But Roger said it was only her 
fancy. 

Later in the day more rumors came about Dan’s crew. 
They were making a racket at the quarters that could 
be heard all up and down the road. 

Dan did not get back till midnight after the household 
was in bed. But some one woke him early with the news 
and he dressed hurriedly and started for the scene of 
trouble. Everything had been running smoothly the 
past week and he had felt it right to take a holiday. 

Roger was up already, fussing with his boat. After 
breakfast, by the aid of several persons on the dock, he 
got her into the water. Warm work it was too, this 
blazing, cloudless morning. 

Sadie came running down the road and called and 
beckoned with both hands to him. She would not speak 
till he came near, away from the other people on the 
dock. 

“ Roger, Roger ! Something happens. Dan comes 
running from the quarters and I am in the hall but he 
never looks on me. Only leaps into your room and pulls 
everything around and as he comes out — Roger, there in 


264 BLUE HERON COVE 

his hand is a small gun and something else, a black 
thing ” 

“ The blackjack ! ” cried Roger, and his freckled face 
lost color. 

“ And he runs fast down the road, out from sight. I 
think no one sees him come, only me.” 

“ Let’s go up to the house and ask Miss Janet.” 

Miss Janet was in the pantry setting away dishes. She 
dropped a platter when they spoke to her and it broke in 
pieces and they noticed how her hands shook as she tried 
to gather the fragments. Miss Janet now for three days 
had not been herself, had seemed like one distracted. 

“ I thought perhaps it was a letter. Or a telegram. 
Daniel ? I only know, dear, that people came in here last 
night saying the men were making a terrible hubbub at 
the quarters and this morning I woke him early with the 
news. I had not slept myself. No, I didn’t see him 
come just now. Oh, I hope he won’t need to use vio- 
lence ! I can’t bear any further trouble.” 

They hung about and kept watch down the road, which 
glared and quivered in the heat. At last, perhaps twenty 
minutes later, here came Dan at a run again. 

It needed only the first look to frighten them. His 
coat was torn, his lips bruised, and his face was flushed 
and angry. He paid no attention to their questions, only 
brushed them off as if he did not even know they were 
trying to keep pace beside him. 

But soon the whole household knew what had happened 
and Blue Heron village was buzzing with it. 

Dan had found the quarters barricaded. Tables and 
bunks had been pushed against the doors and two of the 
crew, out of their heads with drink, had pointed guns at 


DAN TRIES TO RAISE MONEY 265 

him from the windows. It was then that he ran back 
for the weapons he kept in his room at Cap’n Price’s. 
But he did not use them. A few blows of his big fists 
and a scuffle with Jake Ohlen forced a way into the 
house. Many of the poor fellows were lying in a stupid 
sleep from the effects of the bad liquor their ringleaders 
had brought in Saturday night. 

But the others sullenly stood their ground on one 
point. Dan immediately discharged the whole crew but 
they refused to leave until full pay had been handed 
them. 

In this they were within their rights. The young boss 
had been holding back the pay of some to prevent this 
very catastrophe. His pay check from the company’s 
office would not be due for a week. He had not enough 
money by him to pay off more than two or three, out of 
the thirty men. 

Now Dan found out the difficulties of raising money 
on short notice. Big, good-natured Dan had been on the 
best of terms with everybody on the island but, when 
it came to borrowing money, good fellowship had none to 
offer. Ed Bissell, the storekeeper, didn’t like to risk so 
much; Cap’n Nummy hadn’t any by him. The city folks 
had advice to offer but no cash. Poor Dan was even put 
to the discomfort of being refused and snubbed by his 
fellow boarders. 

He was hardly aware of two pairs of feet trotting 
behind him as he hurried round the village or of watch- 
ful eyes fixed resentfully on those who refused to help 
him out. He did not miss them when they disappeared. 

There was no one on the dock when a small craft 
containing two persons slipped out of Heron Cove and as 


266 


BLUE HERON COVE 


it sprit sail caught the faint, southwesterly breeze bore 
away round the lower end of Big Bonnet Island. The 
bay was almost a mill-pond to-day. In the boat’s wake 
the water rolled back in smooth green folds like a lady’s 
train and splashes of foam spread and flattened on the 
surface. Across the bay the main shore lay misty and 
blurred in the August haze. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


HIS FRIENDS GO TO FIND SOME 

Pirate Pinneo’s private passage was nothing but a 
ditch, winding around behind the marshelder bushes and 
emptying into a cove which had probably been scooped 
out when the big storm stopped up the crick. At its 
mouth they saw plainly in the still water the rusty old 
anchor that had stove in their boat. 

They were the only moving things on Crooked Point 
this morning except a fog of gnats and mosquitoes which 
rose from the ditch sides as their pole disturbed them. 
The wind had shifted to westward when they were only 
halfway across the bay and then it had fainted almost to 
nothing. It was now noon. 

Tide was running out of the ditch and that made hard 
poling. Roger poled and his partner sat behind him, her 
feet and legs covered by a piece of canvas, and waved a 
long branch around both of them. Their faces trickled 
with perspiration. 

In Crooked Crick Roger took oars and rowed. Past 
the rotting eel basket, the post with an iron ring, the 
corks dangling from some rags of net, the pile of oyster 
shells. Everything baked in the sultry heat and the mud 
banks smelled abominably. Along their crests fringe 
grasses never quivered, for the wind was dead, but the 
mainland forests half a mile away waved in a watery 
mirage. 


267 


268 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ I wish greenhead flies hadn't ever been invented.” 

“ And I wish the mosquitoes of the whole world were 
together in one great bunch which I might smash.” 

But these wishes had been uttered many times before 
with no effect. 

“ Roger, we got no lunch.” 

“ We’ve got apples and cookies. I grabbed some when 
I ran home for the tools.” 

Just then they swung around the bend and in against 
the old landing. An hour and a half they had spent 
coming from the bay. It was half-past one. 

They waited to eat what they had. When they threw 
the apple cores into the deep brown pool a great old eel 
switched up from the bottom and down again, the sole 
inhabitant of Crooked Crick. 

To-day in the sultry air everything seemed stiller than 
before. They lugged their tools through the deep grass 
and from the high ground saw again the corner of that 
low gray roof. 

Roger muttered, “ Well, it’s really there.” 

Stephanie drew nearer. “ It could happen that he 
might get back already.” 

“ It could happen that somebody else has been here 
and been digging.” That sent them racing toward the 
house. 

Nothing had changed except that the stove-pipe had 
blown over at a different angle. The strange building 
lay there blistering in the sun. The rows of portholes 
looked like unblinking eyes of some great Argus fish. 
Milady, the figurehead, stood forth with the sun blazing 
on her head and stared unremittingly at whatever she was 
looking at. The little vine had climbed two inches higher 


HIS FRIENDS GO TO FIND SOME 269 

at her wrist. Close by in the gravel was a footprint — 
the print of a rubber-soled sneak worn by Roger a week 
ago last Thursday. 

“ Where the figger is alookin’ in a trunk in a kaig.” 

Yes, but where, oh where, was she alookin’ ? 

Not at that marshelder bush at all, they found out 
when they reached it, but sou’east of that and farther out. 
Perhaps at that heap of weed? No, sou’east of that 
and farther in. Perhaps at this baby oak? No. From 
there she appeared to be looking the interlopers in the 
eye. That meant farther out again. 

With their poor backs quite black with mosquitoes and 
a great cloud singing round their heads they tramped and 
stumbled over the rough hummocks of turf, wiregrass, 
young brush, bogs, and blackberry thickets that lay in 
front of Pinneo’s residence. 

“ She chase me wiz her eye each place I go but when 
I am there it is never right.” 

“ She’s a cross-eyed block-head and I’d like to swat 
her one,” cried Roger peevishly. 

“ Now the sun is over her and it makes me blind.” 

“ The sun ? Why so it is ! Sadie, it’s three o’clock. 
Look up there at that black cloud.” 

A thunder cap from the northwest had reared its great 
peaked top far up into the sky. 

Stephanie sank down in a heap upon the ground. 
“ Ach, it is too much ! So hot, so eaten, and now the 
thunder too.” 

Something kept her from bursting into tears, as she 
had been about to do. Something on the ground just 
there. Instead of covering her eyes with the hem of her 


270 BLUE HERON COVE 

middy blouse she leaned over and looked intently on all 
sides of her. 

“ Roger ! Here ! ” 

“What is it?” 

“ Marks wiz clam shells on the ground. A great square 
and inside it a ring.” 

“ Sure — as — preachin’. And you’re sitting right plum 
in the middle of it. Sadie, d’you remember a long time 
ago I called you a mascot? Well, I’ve said some kinda 
mean things to you since and laughed at that pigeon Eng- 
lish you talk, but I want to apologize right here. You — 
you — you’re the real thing , Sadie.” 

Roger stood in front of his friend and stopped slap- 
ping and waving to pay her this handsome com- 
pliment. 

Forgotten now the sun’s glare, the sultry air that made 
every motion burdensome, the threatening black cloud, 
even the singing, stinging guardians of Pirate Pinneo’s 
treasure. 

Roger ran to get their spades and pick. 

The lady was looking this way as much as anywhere, 
but who would ever have guessed it when a sapling oak 
had interposed itself between her and the spot? How- 
ever, somebody had laid out the curious pattern on the 
turf — a ring of large clam shells inclosed within a 
square. 

“ In a trunk, in a kaig.” 

Roger lifted the pickax to his shoulder and brought it 
down thud! in the middle of the ring. 

About noon Dan Smith found he had raised enough 
money to pay his gang half of what was due them. He 


HIS FRIENDS GO TO FIND SOME 


271 


wrote on slips of paper orders for the company for the 
balance and passed these out, giving them notice at the 
same time to get off the island before sunset. The first 
train north would stop at Blue Heron station at three- 
forty. 

He came in after dinner was over, sank into the place 
he found set for him in the dining-room and rested his 
forehead on his hand. 

Miss Janet came to wait on him herself. 

“ Where’s Boxer and her Highness ? ” 

“ I don’t know, Daniel. I’ve been worrying about 
them. The last I remember was when you were asking 
Mrs. Piffington on the porch upstairs to lend you money. 
Roger and the dear child stood right at your elbow 
listening. I haven’t seen them since. They must have 
gone in their boat, as the boys say the Susan is 
out, but no one saw them start and they took no 
lunch. They never went before without leaving word 
with me.” 

“ I haven’t half looked after the kid lately.” Dan 
looked up in his old friend’s face and said abruptly: 

“ Miss Janet, this rumpus means the sack for me.” 

“ Oh, Daniel, don’t say so. Your brother would not 
be so unjust. You are not to blame. Neither are those 
poor fellows, but the wicked people that make bad drink 
to sell to them.” 

“ Morwood Smith won’t think a thing about that 
either. He’ll only think this is the chance he’s been 
waiting for to run me out and take full charge of Roger. 
Guess he’s right too. I seem to make a mess of every- 
thing. The kid’s better off not to spend even his vaca- 
tions with me. I’ll just cut loose again.” 


272 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Dan heard a sound that made him look around. 

“ Why, Miss Janet, you’re crying. Don’t worry about 
me.” 

“ Oh, Daniel, it isn’t only about you, but what you said 
upset me. I didn’t mean to tell any one till some certain 
news should come but it’s three days now. I can’t bear 
to read the papers. I can’t bear to look at my mail. 
Every knock at the door makes me fear a dreadful tele- 
gram. Look at this.” She fumbled in her pocket. “ It 
was what made me feel so ill the other day and I’ve kept 
it to myself. The trouble over our land that the New- 
bolds are back of seemed bad enough but then I opened 
the other letter and it was this : — ” 

She handed him the letter from Mr. Goodrich of the 
Surety and Trust Company. 

Dan read it thoughtfully and tried to reassure Miss 
Janet but “ no news in two months ” could not be ex- 
plained away. 

At four o’clock that afternoon the up-train trundled 
across the Bonnet bridge carrying a crowd of sullen men, 
half-sobered, back to Philadelphia. They were still 
grumbling because the world was not a place in which 
people might loaf and lollop all day long and draw full 
pay for doing it. They never came to Blue Heron Island 
again. 

The Big Boss had seen them off and he was turning 
back toward Montague Beach when Miss Janet Price 
came hurrying out to the road. 

“ Daniel, look at that great thunder cloud up there. 
Not a sign of those children yet. Some say they saw 
them leave the dock this morning headed for the main 
channel. I thought Roger had his sneakbox out of water 


HIS FRIENDS GO TO FIND SOME 273 

for repairs. Wasn’t there something wrong that after- 
noon they reached the dock so late ? ” 

“ Yes, they’d stove in a place in the boat. I told the 
kid not to go across the main channel any more if he 
couldn’t manage any better. But he didn’t act as if he 
heard. There’s been something on his mind. He’s 
been tinkering up the Susan and must have got 
her in the water, whether she was sea-worthy or 
not.” 

Dan decided not to go to Montague until the 4.35 came 
along, which was the 3.40 returning after it met the 
city train at Cranberry. Instead he went down to the 
dock and questioned the regular hangers-on. They were 
Blue Heron folks and others of the summer colony who 
dangled legs and fishlines over the old green timbers all 
day long. But they had not been present when the 
Susan left. They had been up at Bissell’s hearing about 
“ that row you had at the quarters.” 

However they knew Roger had got his boat in the 
water just after breakfast. Others thought they saw a 
sail about ten o’clock tacking round Big Bonnet, making 
naw’west. 

Along the cove people were getting ready for the 
thunder storm that now blotted the sun and boomed out 
heavy warnings. Houseboats took in the washing that 
waved all day above the cabin roofs. Yachts came scud- 
ding in. Fishermen rolled up their reels, and everybody 
made ready to run for shelter. 

Miss Janet Price by this time was so anxious that 
every one in the house was aware of it. She called to 
Dan as he came back from the dock and drew him into 
the dining-room. 


274 BLUE HERON COVE 

“ Did you learn anything? Do you know where they 
went? ” 

“ No. Where have they been going lately, Miss 
Janet? ” 

“ They’ve been going on long trips, Daniel, all up and 
down the bay. You know you thought it safe in the 
Susan after the dear child learned to swim and they were 
very happy and for many reasons it seemed best to me 
to have them out. I always put up a nice lunch with my 
own hands and Roger promised me again and again to 
start home if the least bit of wind threatened. Oh, what 
do you think has happened ? ” 

“ I don’t think anything has happened to make you look 
so scared. But if I knew where they went I’d just 
borrow Cap’n Pharo’s yacht and chase ’em up. They 
may have got stuck in some out-of-the-way place or 
they may be waiting for this storm to pass — the main- 
land’s getting it now; see that curtain of cloud. I don’t 
think it will bother us much here. But where are they, 
that’s the question.” 

“ I wonder,” said an insinuating voice at Dan’s elbow, 
“ if this would help you any.” 

It was Mrs. Piffington extending a paper, a worn, 
shabby, and crumpled sheet of cheap letter paper with 
writing on it. 

“ What’s this and where did it come from? ” 

Mrs. Piffington felt that she had brought things to a 
crisis. 

“ It’s a document, Mr. Smith, which I suspect of hav- 
ing deep and hidden meaning. Perhaps you know what 
it means yourself, perhaps you do not. It may be written 
in code. I don’t wish to make any direct accusations or 


HIS FRIENDS GO TO FIND SOME 


275 


draw in the innocent or worthy, but I saw a paper pass 
from hand to hand, and yesterday afternoon, as I was 
coming through the pantry for a glass of water, I saw 
your brother hide it under the meat block. I extracted it 
with a hairpin and it is now before you.” 

Dan had stared hard at Mrs. Piffington during this 
speech and he looked dubiously at the paper. As the 
lowering sky outside made it dark in the room he took 
the paper to the doorway to read. 

Miss Janet thought he would never stop looking at it. 
She stood by, twisting her apron and listening to the surf 
which boomed loud in the hushed intervals between thun- 
der mutterings. Mrs. Piffington was impatient too. She 
expected a great triumph in being able to say to 
everybody, “ Haven’t I told you so from the very 
first ? ” 

However, he only folded it carefully and put it in his 
pocket. 

“ Miss Janet, I don’t just understand what’s up but 
this lets in a little light on where those kids have gone. 
I’ll see what Cap’n Bill says to letting me take his 
boat.” 

“ Do you dare start now? ” faltered Miss Janet, peer- 
ing out at the gray, choppy water of the bay. 

“ Sure thing. The Wagtail will be all right with three 
reefs tied and the motor engine to fall back on.” 

That was all very well to tell Miss Janet but Cap’n 
Bill Pharo advised Dan not to risk it. 

“ You’re welcome to the Wagtail , Dannie, now or ever, 
and I’d trust your handling of her as soon as ary chap 
on this island but that cloud’s got wind in it.” 

Dan was determined to start. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


276 

“ Then I’ll get my oilskins and jest come along to 
shift ballast for ye,” said Cap’n Bill. 

But Cap’n Bill Pharo did not go out on Swallow Bay 
that afternoon. 

Amidst the rumble and darkness of the approaching 
storm the 4.35 down-train had come and gone. Miss 
Janet saw it from her window. Dan and Cap’n Pharo 
felt the dock vibrate and glanced over their shoulders at 
the string of coaches pulling out, just as they clambered 
into the Wagtail to make her ready for rough sailing. 

It took some time to lace the reeling-points through 
their eyelets and pull in the billowing canvas. 

Drops of rain were falling now and a curtain of mist 
had dropped over the bay. 

A man came running bareheaded down the dock road. 
He did not slacken his pace on the planks of the old 
wharf, never stopped, in fact, till he made a leap and 
landed on the bow of the Wagtail , with his arm round 
the mast. She was straining on her cable and he had to 
clear three feet of water to land on her bow. 

The two men in oilskins let their hands drop and stared 
at him — a tall, well-set-up man in city clothes — an ex- 
cited man who shouted as he leaped aboard : 

“ Bill Pharo, it’s no use for you to go. Three will 
only get in each other’s way — two can handle her better. 
Have you got her reefed? Give me the tiller. Dan 
Smith, you handle the motor. Here, let me have your 
oilskins, Pharo.” 

“ What in constarnation ” began Cap’n Bill. He 

gazed at the bareheaded stranger through narrowed lids 
as he would peer across the bay at a sail, many miles 
away, which he thought he recognized. 


CHAPTER XXV 


TREASURE 

On Crooked Point the storm had been a long time get- 
ting ready and then with a rush of wind and an ear- 
splitting clap, it began. 

A moment before the first drop fell Roger’s pick had 
rung on something besides turf, something hard, that 
resisted his blow. 

They had tugged so long at the tough soil and been 
so tormented by mosquitoes, gnats, and flies and stifled 
by the hot, close air that that first great swoop of wind 
seemed delicious. It tossed the gnats sky-high and it 
cooled their necks and faces. They were conscious of 
this without really thinking of it for they were too 
excited to think. 

“ Sadie, Sadie, it’s It” 

They jumped down into the hole, only about three feet 
deep, and began to delve like sandbugs. But on their 
backs fell big splashes — just a few, then many, pattering 
hard. The wind came wilder than ever; it tore and 
banged things round Pirate Pinneo’s house, doubled the 
bushes over, and slung in the eyes of the treasure seekers 
sand, dust, and chaff. Next came the rain in torrents. 

Sooner than it takes to say it their excavation turned 
into a well of water. 

There was nothing for it now but to run. They ran 
to Pirate Pinneo’s back door, dug the key out of the crack 
277 


BLUE HERON COVE 


278 

where they had hid it and stumbled inside, to push their 
backs against the door to hold it shut. 

My! What a racket the storm raised round that 
shanty! It made sounds on the shingles overhead like 
beating carpets. The elbow of stovepipe seemed to be 
repeatedly cracking its funny-bone, and down came a 
little stream of water, drip, spatter, into the dark interior 
somewhere. Meanwhile the thunder spoke in sharp, 
loud claps that followed quickly one upon another. 

Stephanie stood with her back against the door and 
squeezed her eyes shut and dug her fists into her ears, 
for she was afraid of thunder. By and by she heard 
Roger shouting. 

“ You don’t need to hold the door, I’ve got it fastened.” 

She opened her eyes and there was the candle lit on 
the copper-topped table. There were the chests, the 
stove, the strange cutlery, the state-room fittings, and 
the wall full of cupboards. Water was dripping from 
the roof in several places. The stuffy little room smelled 
of wet shingles and mouldy cracker boxes, and always 
faintly of the sea. 

Roger shouted, “ Let’s go into the boat part,” and led 
the way. 

In there Stephanie sat down on a red plush chair and 
would do nothing but stop up her ears as long as the 
sharp thunder lasted. Roger took a chair opposite and 
they had time now for those curious thoughts that come 
when people who have been rushing actively about are 
compelled for awhile to quietness. How strange a place 
this was to be in. The room was in twilight from the 
storm except during lightning flashes. It might almost 
be a real ship with waves hissing on the deck. How the 


TREASURE 


279 


rain beat! Would they ever get away? It was now 
almost Blue Heron supper-time. There would be a 
pleasant clink of dishes in Price’s dining-room. But be- 
tween there and here stretched three miles of rough 
water, and another mile of empty marsh. Nobody knew 
where they were. If anything should happen Sup- 

posing Pirate Pinneo, when dark fell, came out of hiding 
in the woods, came to see who had disturbed his ring of 
shells and uncovered his buried treasure to the rain ? 

Roger jumped up. “ Do unstop your ears. The 
thunder only growls down cellar now. Do you know 
what I’m going to do? I’m going up. to the look- 
out.” 

“ The storm will fall on you.” 

“ Don’t care. I’ve got to get out there and see what’s 
going on. No, don’t you come. It’s pouring.” 

Roger tried to go through the trap door without letting 
in the weather but failed; a bucketful of water tumbled 
in at once. He had some trouble fastening the trap 
behind him and his partner down below wished that he 
had left it ajar, for now she seemed entirely deserted. 
She sat and thought of stories Roger had told her about 
sole survivors shut up tight in wrecked ships from which 
the fresh air gradually leaked away. 

It was not really long before another bucketful of 
water descended, followed by a pair of waving legs and 
then Roger himself. 

“ Can’t see anything. The rain’s coming down thick. 
Just look at my clothes.” 

Never in their after lives did either of them read of 
shipwreck or marooning without seeing the light fall 
grayly through little round, high windows upon a row 


28 o 


BLUE HERON COVE 


of chests and cabinets against the wall ; never did mouldy 
smell fail to bring it all back to them. 

They tried to look at the toys and curios but they 
could not see them plainly. 

“ If it rains much longer we cannot see.” 

“ If it rains much longer we’ll have to stay all night.” 

We have here no beds.” 

“ Nor anything to eat.” 

“ Miss Janet should worry.” 

“ And Dan won’t get the money. I thought we’d have 
handed it to him before now. Wonder what he’s doing. 
Wonder if the men got fresh again. Wonder what 
Brother Morwood will do to him. Sadie, if Dan runs 
away again, do you know what I mean to do? I shall 
simply pack up something and follow him. Yes, I’ll just 
run away too.” 

Stephanie began to whimper. She was tired, wet, and 
frightened. 

“ No, no, Roger. You shall not run. My giant shall 
not run. I got to have somebody. My Herr Vater for- 
gets to come and now you too must go, and Dan must 
go, and my stockings are all wet and it gets so dark here 
and I must cry.” 

“ No, you don’t!” exclaimed Roger desperately. 
“ See here, I think your father’s a poor fish, the way 
he treats you and if I ever see him I’ll punch him.” 

“ Ach, no ! Ach, no ! ” wailed Stephanie. Roger had 
said the wrong thing to pacify her. 

“ Well, but if we get the treasure Dan won’t run away 
anyhow. And you know my pick struck something just 
before this pesky-mean storm came along. And I’m 
pretty sure we can get home to-night and then come back 


TREASURE 281 

to-morrow to finish. So brace up. Do please brace up, 
Sadie.” 

Sadie only huddled herself in the chair and rocked and 
drew gurgling breaths. 

Roger might have scolded and said he was wetter than 
she was and just as hungry and mosquito-bitten and tired 
and worried. But he had grown fond of this funny little 
Sadie who had been his constant companion all sum- 
mer. 

On several occasions when he had gone off with Blue 
Heron boys instead of her he found they didn’t suit him 
half so well. All right for a day’s fishing but you 
couldn’t interest them in anything that wasn’t in front of 
their noses. Sadie had really kept up her end generally. 
This was the first crying she had done since that first 
night he saw her and she had been hurt or scared several 
times enough to upset most girls. Things were certainly 
bad here. It wouldn’t take much more to make him act 
silly himself. 

“ See here, Sadie, you really mustn’t cry, you know. 
It isn’t fair and it makes me feel worse and it doesn’t do 
any good. You know what Dan told you the other day 
— that you were getting to be a regular all-round sport. 
He wouldn’t say that if he could see you now. Listen. 
You don’t want to be like one of those Bradshaw kids, 
that yell when they see a sandbug, do you ? ” 

“ N-no.” 

“ Course you’d hate to. Well, now, I know what. 
It isn’t raining so much and we’ll both go up on deck 
and stay in the lookout till it clears. That’s better than 
down here and we can pretend it’s a ship and as soon 
as we can see Three-bar Light we’ll skip over to the Crick, 


282 BLUE HERON COVE 

empty out the Susan and get home some way. Come 
on. Up you go.” 

Only light drops fell on their faces as they came out 
under the sky. The storm was rumbling off to the south- 
west. Not a breath of wind stirred and twilight was 
falling over the lonely marsh, sodden and still. 

They stopped on the roof, holding out their hands to 
feel the rain, glancing toward the grove with its motion- 
less wet branches and at the darkening sky. Water drip- 
dripped from the shanty eaves. A cricket somewhere in 
the grass tuned up squeakily. Sharp in this dead quiet 
a new sound fell. 

Out there on the point metal rung on hollow wood : — - 
blim blam. 

Stephanie grabbed Roger and their hearts seemed to 
turn over. They could see nothing because the little 
deckhouse loomed between. Again the sound : — blim 
blam! 

In after years there came a time when Roger blushed 
if the word pirate was spoken. “Aw, forget it,” he 
would say. “ I wasn’t scared that night. I didn’t really 
think ’tvyas ghosts.” But at this moment he remembered 
a ballad called “ The Lady Hannah ” — for Hannah’s 
ghost guarded a treasure chest of Captain Kidd’s : 

“ But when they ceased, and Captain Kidd 
Came down the sands of Dead Neck Isle 
‘ My lady wearies,’ he grimly said, 

‘And she would rest awhile. 

“ ‘ I’ve made her a bed — ’tis here, ’tis there 
And she shall wake , be it soon or long, 


TREASURE 


283 


Where grass is green and wild birds sing 
And the wind makes undersong. 

“ ‘ But if a lover would win her gold, 

And his hands be strong to lift the lid, 

Tis here, ’tis there, ’tis everywhere — 

In the Chest,’ quoth Captain Kidd.” 

.. Then they heard voices, and they were men’s voices. 

Somehow they made their feet carry them forward to 
the little deckhouse where they could peer through its 
spattered windows toward the point. 

Out there in the open a dark figure straightened up 
and outlined itself against the horizon, very tall, — then 
another. 

The rain had ceased entirely and now the clouds lifted 
slightly. Outlines everywhere became clearer in the dull 
reflection of the afterglow of sunset. 

“ Why ! ” said Roger shakily. “ Sadie, that’s — that’s 
Dan.” 

It seemed as if Roger tumbled bodily through the trap- 
door. Other doors slammed and his shout sounded out- 
side, betraying a quaver left over from the fears now 
banished and forgotten. 

“ Hay — ay — ay — ay ! Dan ! ” 

What was Stephanie doing while Roger rushed to join 
his brother? She stood alone in the dark little turret, 
facing its eastern window, a figure turned to stone. Who 
was that other man ? What was this that pressed upon 
her heart? A thought, a fear — Heaven knows what 
came into her mind in that next stretch of time. 

Three figures upon the landscape now, grouping them- 


BLUE HERON COVE 


284 

selves this way and that; three persons coming toward 
the house, their voices booming in the silence. Footsteps, 
clatter, calling voices. “ Why she must be up there 
yet! ” Bumping and thumping of feet upon the ladder. 

A voice said, “Wait! I want to find her myself.” 
Then close by the door of the deckhouse it said again, 
“ My little daughter ” 

How did she move herself to turn? He must have 
seen the shadow of her head against the window for he 
gave that little charming laugh and caught her in his 
arms. 

“Herr Vater.” 

“ My precious, my little girl, would you mind saying 
daddy?” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


SEVERAL PEOPLE OUT OF SORTS 

Several persons at Cap’n Price's went to bed in a dis- 
gruntled mood that night. 

Mrs. Piffington, Mr. Beagle, Mrs. Bradshaw, and the 
lady from Philadelphia sat around the parlor lamp until 
ten o'clock waiting for things to be explained. 

The lady from Philadelphia had declared that she must 
find some other place to spend her summers. She could 
no longer feel secure at Blue Heron. “ I might better 
stay in Rittenhouse Square; we have labor troubles and 
suspicious characters in my own city," she said ag- 
grievedly, as if these were the very things she had come 
to the seashore to find but thought she would do still 
better at home. 

“ I feel shaken also, deeply shaken," said Mrs. Pif- 
fington. “Why don't we have things explained to us? 
I thought everything would be cleared up when I handed 
that incendiary document to Miss Janet Price this after- 
noon but instead Dan Smith seizes the paper, flies down 
to the dock and sails away in a rising thunder storm. 
He has not yet returned. What has happened? I 
understand he will be discharged because of trouble with 
his workmen. I am sure I would not work for a young 
man who keeps a pistol and a blackjack in his second 
bureau drawer, as I saw with my own eyes one day 
when I had to close the windows because of a draft from 
that room. He did not explain the paper to Janet Price 
285 


286 


BLUE HERON COVE 


and it was a most alarming document, full of code sig- 
nals, and ” (turning to the lady from Philadelphia) “ it 
was concealed under the meat-block close by your chair 
in the dining-room. And then to make things more com- 
plicated, came the strange man.” 

“ Strange man, strange man ! ” ejaculated Mr. Beagle 
testily. He had been pretending to read the paper while 
the ladies talked. “ I hear constantly of a strange man 
turning up here this afternoon but I haven’t seen him. 
Haven’t met the fellow. What’s his name? Who is 
he? Where’d he come from? Where is he now, I’d 
like to know ? ” 

“ That is what we beg you to tell us, sir. All I know 
is that just before the storm broke I heard a great com- 
motion downstairs, like some one having hysterics. I 
rushed down as fast as I could and found Janet Price 
acting light-headed. Yes, I use the word advisedly — 
she’s been so ever since. A straw hat and a light over- 
coat were flung over the banister and a large valise stood 
on the floor. I looked out of the door and saw a person 
running toward the dock. Janet Price, as you all know, 
put Dutch Cleanser into the supper biscuits instead of 
soda, forgot the napkins, burned the chowder, and let 
poor Cap’n come to the table without his coat. And she 
didn’t show the least nervousness over these distressing 
blunders — merely beamed at one and all. Mrs. Brad- 
shaw, you say you saw the man? ” 

“ Oh, yes, when I ran down to bring in the baby’s 
carriage I heard some one say very excitedly, ‘ I can’t 
wait, I can’t wait ! Whoever’s gone after her, I’m going 
too! ’ And a man without any hat on burst out of the 
door and started running toward the dock.” 


SEVERAL PEOPLE OUT OF SORTS 287 

Mr. Beagle had never told any one about reading Miss 
Janet’s two letters the day she fainted. He was ashamed 
of it, and beside he was puzzled and worried. That New 
York letter with its references to Harpoons, to German 
cruisers, and to information which would be forwarded 
to Blue Heron later — all this made the apoplectic old 
gentleman feel quite nervous and muddled in his mind. 
Was there really mischief afoot? Were there plots at 
Price’s where he’d been coming every summer for six 
years? Mrs. Piffington’s hints about the little girl he 
had taken with a grain of salt. That woman was always 
stirring up something. One year she had convinced 
everybody that the artesian well had germs in it; an- 
other time it was blackhanders disguised as fruit and 
vegetable men. He had joined in this year’s scheme 
more as a sort of game, which everybody understood, 
for prying into other people’s business. But a letter was 
different. That New York letter came from the office of 
a prominent banking house. 

He jerked his newspaper and moved his chair irascibly. 
“ Good-looking man? Good -looking? Goo d-looking ? 
I’ve seen some smooth rascals in my time. He could 
carry a bomb in his pocket, couldn’t he, if he did wear 
a fancy suit? Where’s he gone? When’s he coming 
back ? I don’t like this place any more. Doesn’t agree 
with me. I’m going to look up time-tables in the 
morning.” 

The lady from Philadelphia said she had decided on 
the 3.40 on Wednesday and the other ladies spoke of 
trains that they would take at an early date, and all went 
to bed in a bad humor. 

Still another person of that household retired to rest 


288 


BLUE HERON COVE 


feeling that the world was out of joint. This, sad to 
say, was Roger Smith. 

Cap’n Bill Pharo’s yacht, with the Susan in tow, did 
not come to port till a late hour. It had taken almost 
as long to get everybody off Crooked Point as it had 
taken the rescuing party to get in. That afternoon the 
rescuers, after a squally crossing, had waded through all 
the quags and bogs on that portion of the Jersey shore. 
They had at last spied a forlorn gray building and struck 
upon newly-turned soil, spades, a pick, and a hole 
half-filled with water which they sounded with the 
pick. 

What happened then has been told already and what 
happened after that was a complicated departure from 
Crooked Crick and a long trip home, under canvas, be- 
cause the motor engine in Cap’n Bill’s yacht refused to 
work. 

Twice before they left the Point, Roger had protested 
to his brother: 

“ Dan, couldn’t we wait just long enough to — to finish 
our excavation? ” 

“ That hole out in front of the shanty? Certainly not. 
Haven’t you done enough foolishness for one day? 
You’ll give an account of yourself later but now show 
me where your boat is stowed and I’ll see if it will 
take Mr. Rand and me besides you two, out of this 
swamp.” 

“ Who is Mr. Rand ? ” asked Roger curiously. 

A little later as they were ready to set off Roger said, 
“ I left the pick and shovels. I expect to come right 
back to-morrow.” 

“ No, you won’t come back to-morrow. Gather every- 


SEVERAL PEOPLE OUT OF SORTS 289 

thing together and be quick about it. We’re all cold and 
wet. Mr. Rand had to swim for it out there.” 

“ Dan, who is Mr. Rand ? ” demanded Roger a second 
time. The behavior of the mysterious stranger was be- 
coming queerer and queerer. Not only queer, but as 
the trip went on, offensive and distasteful to one member 
of the party. In fact Roger sat in the stern of the 
Wagtail and glowered through the dark, and derived his 
only comfort from snorting over and over to himself, 
“ Who is the fellow and what’s he doing here ? ” 

This unknown and unwelcome person had appeared 
on Crooked Point with Roger’s own brother, Dan, both 
of them in oilskins and both exceedingly wet and muddy. 
Roger had paid little attention to the stranger — merely 
some one whom his brother had brought along to help 
rescue himself and Sadie. But the stranger was not to 
be ignored. He kept saying excitedly, “ Where is she ? 
Where did you say ? I want to find her myself. Up on 
the roof? Where is the roof? Quick! Hurry! I 
want to find her at once!” Not a word about how he 
came there, or about Pirate Pinneo’s house, or the storm 
or anything except “ her.” As Sadie was the only “ her ” 
around Roger had showed him the ladder and up he 
sprang as if the house were on fire. 

The Susan made its way down-crick with the two men 
walking along the bank most of the way. Then they all 
boarded the Wagtail , taking the Susan in tow, and there 
Roger felt that the stranger’s behavior was becoming 
highly distasteful. He acted as if Sadie belonged to him, 
making her sit beside him in the forward end of the 
yacht, where they whispered together. 

As Dan would do nothing but sail the boat in silence, 


290 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Roger spoke to Sadie herself. Had he not been giving 
her advice and counsel all summer? 

“ Sadie, you better come back here by Dan and me 
and watch Dan steer. It’s a good chance to learn how 
to tell the channels in the dark.” 

Instead of the person addressed the intruder answered 
up. “ Were you speaking to this little girl? She’s fast 
asleep here against my shoulder, all worn out by the 
discovery she’s made to-day.” 

Discovery? Roger repeated gloomily to himself. 
They had discovered nothing yet and it began to look as 
if they never would — as if their most promising plan, 
founded on definite writing and almost carried through, 
might be spoiled, busted, smashed. For if Dan remained 
stubborn and Sadie went back on him, went off with this 
stranger who might be one of her queer Hoboken rela- 
tives, but anyway Roger had no use for him — why it 
just put the kibosh on everything. 

When, in their room, Dan attempted to ask questions 
and scold a little more, Roger turned stubborn on his 
side. 

“ You needn’t talk, Dan Smith, and you needn’t try to 
find things out. I’ve asked you about sixteen questions 
about that black-haired guy in the blue serge suit and you 
haven’t answered one of ’em. Now it’s my turn.” 

Dan laughed a little. 

“ Son, you’ll know all about that gentleman soon. 
To-morrow morning probably. He said he’d have to 
find the best way to untangle Miss Janet first and let 
people know she wasn’t responsible for the deception.” 

“To-morrow morning? I’ll be somewhere else to- 
morrow morning. I’ll be in the Susan sailing for 


SEVERAL PEOPLE OUT OF SORTS 


291 


Crooked Point and you needn't try to stop me. I been 
all the time just working to help you and we did strike 
something wooden and if you could see a certain paper 
you'd sing a different tune and there's clam shells in 
a square inside a circle and I’m going to do this thing 
up thorough to-morrow morning.” 

“ Don’t holler. You'll wake up Cap'n — and he's about 
the only person in this house that hasn't had nervous 
prostration to-day. He stayed at the station-house and 
played checkers through everything. Cap'n Bill just told 
me so when he came down to see if we brought the 
Wagtail in all safe. Now go to sleep, Boxer.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


“ IN A TRUNK IN A KAIG ” 

Roger slept fitfully all night and at dawn he rose 
quietly and tip-toed from the house. 

The Susan lay next Cap’n Pharo’s Wagtail. She had 
lost some of her belongings in Crooked Crick and must 
be put in order before another all-day trip. It was 
going to be a lovely morning, clear and cool. The bay 
and the sleeping village lay in the smiling emptiness of 
early day. He had the whole world to himself. 

But not for long, for while he spread his sail to dry 
and the Susan sagged back and forth under the dock 
rafters a voice hailed him softly from above and Dan 
swung into the little boat. 

“ Boxer, will you take me along? Say no if you feel 
like it.” 

Roger looked doubtful. “ How d’you know where 
I’m goin’ ? ” 

“ How’d I know anything? Kid, look here. You 
gave me an awful scare yesterday and I’d had a hard 
day, and then I felt sore not to be able to render up at 
once to Mr. Rand what he first entrusted to me. You 

don’t know what I’m talking about Well, the point 

is this Forget and forgive the grouch I had on last 

night and take me along to hunt that treasure. You 
know I have the document Here it is. Mrs. Pif- 


292 


“ IN A TRUNK IN A KAIG 


293 


fington saw you shove it under the meat-block. She 
thinks you and Highness are running a gunpowder plot. 
But when I saw old Pinneo’s name I guessed where you’d 
gone. You weren’t exactly easy to find though, by 
hump! The storm caught us at Bonnet Islands and 
if Mr. Rand hadn’t known this bay as well as I do 
we’d have swamped the Wagtail. When we’d got across 
Big Channel we didn’t know where to land and the land 
we did strike seemed to be mostly water. But we went 
through the swamp someway before dark came, struck 
inland and stumbled on your diggings.” Dan sighed and 
mopped his face. He had seated himself in the stern of 
the tiny boat with his knees humped up like a daddy- 
long-legs. “ By that time I wasn’t speaking much. 
When he asks, ‘ Did you say they go off on trips like 
this every day ? ’ I simply held my lip. Might have 
answered back ‘ You went on a trip yourself,’ but I 
didn’t. He took the spade and drove it into the hole 
which was partly filled with water, and it thumped on 
some hard surface. Then you came running out. Well, 
I suppose her Highness will soon be leaving us for good. 
If I get my walking papers that won’t make much dif- 
ference to either of us. You’ll go back to Brother Mor- 
wood and I’ll cut loose somewhere. Never mind — let’s 
go hunt treasure. For whatever moonshine led you to 
it I half-believe this time you’ve struck oil.” 

Roger understood that this long speech was meant to 
make up for last night’s curtness and he held out his 
hand. 

“ Shake! Of course you can go. But, Dan, who w 
Mr. Rand?” 

At this moment steps sounded on the dock and a 


294 


BLUE HERON COVE 


shadow that fell along the wharf was made by the new 
risen sun shining on the very person Roger spoke of. 

“ Hullo, boys.” 

He stood there laughing down at them and they for- 
gave his spotless flannels, his being a stranger, and all 
other counts against him because of that very laugh. 
For they were both young lads and he was a charming 
man of the world accustomed to win people when he 
wished. 

“ I say — you fellows are early. But I saw you from 
my window and guessed what was up and who was up. 
I didn’t sleep well last night at the hotel and woke 
before day thinking of that document Dan showed me 
yesterday — which we didn’t either of us think much of 
yesterday except as our only guide to the missing. 
You’re off to Crooked Point this morning — aren’t you? 
I knew it. Please take me along. I never went treasure 

hunting in my life ” He interrupted himself and 

his face changed. “ Yes, I went treasure hunting yes- 
terday afternoon and found it. But that document has 
set me studying and I think Dan, won’t you per- 

suade your brother to take me along? ” 

Mr. Rand and Dan exchanged a questioning look, each 
wondering what was in the other’s mind about the docu- 
ment. Roger thought a minute. 

“ I’d just as soon you’d go, but you see, there isn’t room 

in the sneakbox; besides ” He hesitated and then 

came out loyally, “ I don’t think it’s right for this whole 
crowd to go and have the fun of finding whatever’s there 
and leave out Sadie.” 

For a moment Mr. Rand couldn’t think who Sadie was. 

“ He means ” began Dan laughing. 


IN A TRUNK IN A KAIG 


295 


“ Oh, I see,” said Mr. Rand, but instead of laughing he 
looked sober, as his thoughts went back to a pile of letters 
and something else Mr. Boals had handed him in New 
York the other day. 

“ I left word last night with Miss Janet to let her 
rest this morning. She was so tired I was worried. 

That little girl ” He looked at Dan, who knew at 

least part of the story — and flushed like a boy. It was 
as if he felt the need of making a confession. “ The 
time of indifference or carelessness on my part to that 
little girl has gone by forever — forever.” 

“ I understand, sir,” said Dan. 

Roger, however, didn’t know what they were talking 
about and didn’t see the point of wasting time in express- 
ing sentiments. 

“ You should worry about Sadie. Rest! She doesn’t 
need any rest. Why, what kind of a training do you 
think I’ve given her? She’s been round with me all 
summer and done everything — fallen overboard, eaten 
poison pokeberries, burned all the skin off her arms and 
face. Hasn’t she, Dan? Little business like yesterday 
wouldn’t make her wink. I’ll go call her; she’d feel 
awfully to be left out.” 

But he was saved the trouble. 

Down the road at that moment a small figure came 
flying. 

Roger, standing in the boat, caught sight of her first 
and said, “ Here she is now.” They all watched the 
dark head bobbing along above the bushes beside the 
road, and then she came out in the open and on the 
dock, but her feet beat a slower tune when she saw who 
stood there. 


BLUE HERON COVE 


296 

Mr. Rand saw a little girl in a dark cotton middy suit, 
much soiled and mussed. Her legs were bare to-day and, 
oh, but they were brown! She wore no hat; the morn- 
ing light fell on her dark braids, which were all fuzzy 
curls (for they were yesterday’s braids) and on her 
brown, slim, keen little face. On the eyebrows Miss 
Janet had said were like his. On the eyes, which, as 
she drew near, rested on his with a kind of rapturous 
suspense. Was this Herr Vater in the morning light 
or was it Daddy? 

He held out his arms and she sprang into them. 

Roger and Dan looked on from the boat below. To 
Roger Mr. Rand turned and said laughing, “ Roger, on 
the seventeenth of last March a little German Countess 
in beautiful white silk clothes went out to ride with your 
brother and I never saw her again. Instead I find 

Sadie What is it? Wienerwurst? A real authem 

tic, orthodox American child and my daughter. Yo\\ 
mustn’t tell it right away, until I have time to straighten 
out Miss Janet Price’s reputation for truth with her 
boarders and the village. So don’t mention her real 
name to any one else but practise using it yourself for 
I hate the other almost as much as Miss Janet does. This 
is Stephanie Rand.” 

Now it must be recorded that though Roger did finally, 
after much explaining, understand, it was long, long be- 
fore he could quite get over it. Even the events of that 
day, gratifying and most important though they were, 
could not make him fully reconciled that his partner, 
Sadie, was somebody else and had been somebody else 
ever since he had known her. Others had known the 
truth but he had been deceived, “ stung,” he told himself. 


IN A TRUNK IN A KAIG 


297 


Many things had to happen to his liking before he quite 
recovered from this grievance. 

Cap’n Nummy’s boat Ada sailed across the bay and 
lay off Crooked Point at anchor. Cap’n Nummy did not 
know this till later, but neither he nor Cap’n Bill Pharo 
had any fault to find when Alan Rand settled up with 
them. He was always like that, cheeky but free-handed, 
they recalled. Neither did Miss Janet mind that her ice- 
box had been plundered ; she would have let him 
chop up the house for kindling-wood this day to 
suit his fancy. 

The Ada lay empty, riding at anchor on water the color 
of gentians. The bogs of Crooked Point laughed at the 
blue sky; they were ruffing lakes to-day in the midst of 
an emerald park of meadows. Snipe rose from the 
sedge ; blackbird, thrush, and sparrow sang in the bushes. 
And the voices of four impetuous persons drove away 
the last suggestion of loneliness from Pirate Pinneo’s 
domain. 

Did the sap of feminine curiosity stir in the wooden 
lady’s head ? Or was it only a breeze in the young oak, 
which had grown up in her line of focus, that made her 
seem to peek and crane through its branches at the 
group of persons round the spot she had sentineled 
so long? 

“ Do you know,” said Mr. Rand staring at the house 
and round on every side, “ now I see this place by day- 
light something comes back to me. That building is a 
queer affair — I don’t remember it — but there was an old 
shooting ground on one of these points that we used to 
come to, Stephen Price and I. Poor Steve, the finest, 


2q8 


BLUE HERON COVE 


kindest fellow in the world, something the build of Dan 
Smith here. He was like a big brother to me.” Mr. 
Rand glanced at his daughter suddenly, 44 You should 
have known big Steve — I always meant you to, and when 
I picked on Blue Heron for you he was in my thoughts, 
besides the Cap’n and Miss Janet. I thought one thing 
would make up to him for all my long neglect. Yes, I 
believe this is the very spot and that building must stand 
on the site of a little shack we put up.” 

“ That building is partly an old shack,” said Roger. 

“ I must look at it by and by. We used to camp out 
there in March. And wait! I believe we named our 
shack 4 The Pirates’ Own ’ after a book we had been 
reading. We were just outgrown kids, you know. I 
worked in an office in Philadelphia and was alone in the 
world. Steve was a fine fellow. He had traveled up 
and down the coast on Cap’n Price’s boats, the Lizzie M. 
and the Garland and had been away at school. His 
father wanted him to beat Cap’n Newbold’s boys — the 
old chap he had the feud with. Dan, let me see that 
paper. I didn’t really read it yesterday.” 

44 The stuff is were the figger is alookin’ in a trunk in 
a kaig.” 

Mr. Rand standing at the edge of the clam-shell ring 
read Pirate Pinneo’s document aloud : 

44 1 alis intent to giv it up but sorta let it go till I herd 
they dug up the old mark and haf lawiers. No lawier 
wunt fine me they needunt to look. I ain’t a pirit. Foks 
may say all they will I never told no boat in so help me. 


IN A TRUNK IN A KAIG 


299 


One skuner was a frensh bark of wines I lug tu frensh 
fellers out the serf myself. The goods in this house if 
ary person can find oners or clams of wreked vessels 
Count Pulasko, Osceola , or John C. Calhoun are welkim. 

I had my use and also plesure from same but a bad con- 
shins is a uneesy mate and this mash does not agree with 
my helth any more. Enny way Cap’n got fooled. He 
ses sesee Fishhooks is about his size sesee, 

“ Fairwell to all, 

“ Phinneas Pinneo.” 

Over the last words of the letter Mr. Rand glanced 
up at Dan and they gave each other a look which said 
as plain as words, do you think as I do and could it posri- 
sibly be true? 

Dan dropped on one knee and looked into the hole. 
Last night’s rain was drained away but mud had washed 
into the bottom. 

“ Did you two get out all this meadow sod alone? ” 

“ You bet we did and it was beastly hard work. I 
had to cut roots with my pocket knife.” 

“ And the hotness and mosquitoes and greenheads, 
they are fierce.” Every time she used words like this 
Mr. Rand turned on his daughter a glance of keen amuse- 
ment. “ But the storm comes and we must beat it.” 

Dan took a spade and prodded. 

.“There is some hard surface at the bottom of that 
hole/’ 

Now the men fell to in earnest with pick and spade. 
Roger ran and brought some of Pinneo’s whaling imple- 
ments. Handing a hooked piece of iron to his one-time 
partner he said with stiff politeness : 


300 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ Perhaps you might care to help with this.” Ste- 
phanie stared at him, greatly puzzled by his formal 
manner which she had noticed already several times that 
morning, but she took the instrument and joined in tear- 
ing away roots and sod. 

Soon they had widened the circle to the circumference 
marked with shells. Dan now stepped into the hole and 
scraped bare a surface, flat, wooden, made of closely- 
joined boards and surrounded by a circular ring. In 
short, it was the top of a great hogshead. 

“ Some ‘ kaig,’ ” remarked the giant dryly. He took 
up the pick. “ What next ? This may have been sunk 
here for a spring or reservoir and covered over later. 
Or it may be what that crazy letter seems to indicate. 
Shall we go on ? ” 

“ It’s easy enough to say, go on, but that’s an old 
wine cask, tough as iron. Who’s going to open it ? ” 

“ Stand away and I’ll just show you, sir.” 

Dan laid the pickax far back on his shoulder and 
brought it down with a stunning blow and crash. Again 
and again and again he lunged. A splintered opening 
gaped in the head of the old cask. He bent down, broke 
away some slivers and thrust in his arm. 

“ There is, in here, a small chest or box, something 
with square corners and it stands on end.” 

Nobody spoke while he finished demolishing the cask 
lid and laid bare the inside, which was intact and tight 
and contained nothing but a small, brown, hide-covered 
chest, such as travelers used in 1850. 

He lifted it out and placed it on the ground. As the 
end came down every one heard a muffled sound, chink 
chunk. 


“ IN A TRUNK IN A KAIG ” 


301 


Mr. Rand spoke up and in doing so went far in win- 
ning for himself a friend. 

“ I think Roger should be the one to open this box 
and examine its contents.” 

“ And Sadie too,” said Roger loyally, forgetting in 
that prodigious moment that Sadie was no more. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


OTHER TREASURE 

Two canvas bags lay under a tight mass of old news- 
papers and shavings, which Roger and Stephanie 
solemnly took out and sifted, before they came to the 
heavy objects in the bottom. 

One was packed full, sewed across the top with twine, 
sealed and had a label inked upon it : 

$1000 T.N. 

The other bag was tied around its middle. On both 
sacks printed words were faintly visible : 

7 

Plugman’s 
Improved 
Chilled 
SHOT 
New York 

7 

“ Shot-bags/' said Dan and he took the half-filled sack 
in his hand. “ But what’s in ’em isn’t shot. Do you 
think we might open this one ? ” 

Mr. Rand nodded and Dan passed it to Roger whose 
hands trembled as he unclasped his jackknife. After a 

302 


OTHER TREASURE 


303 


moment of fumbling with the string he turned up the 
bag and poured the entire contents into Stephanie’s lap. 

Eleven pounds of gold and silver coins weighed down 
Stephanie’s ankles as she sat cross-legged on the ground. 

Outlandish money some of it was too. There were 
Portuguese dobras and moidores, silver escudos of Spain, 
Chinese coins with dragons on them, old trade dollars 
and Mexican silver, pieces stamped “ San Francisco 
1853,” odd little one and three-dollar gold pieces. 

They all spent some minutes handling it over and Mr. 
Rand said : “ It might almost be the regulation pirate 
hoard after all.” 

What else should it be, thought Roger and Stephanie, 
but the thing they had been all these months in quest of? 
Roger whispered something in his partner’s ear and she 
gave a little pleased nod. They gathered up the whole 
pile in four hands, Stephanie jumped up, and both stepped 
in front of Dan and held it out to him, grinning and 
making funny little bows. 

“ What’s this?” 

“ It’s for you. Allow us to present this money for 
you to take a course at the University of Pennsylvania.” 

“ Yes, Giant, we hunt and we hunt and at last we have 
found, but always it is for you.” 

“ Yes, ’nd we tried to get it yesterday in time for you 
to pay off your men.” 

“ We hear you ask Mr. Bissell and Mrs. Piffington and 
they say No and Roger says you shall not be fired because 
of such tightwads and we jump in the Susan quick and 
sail away.” 

“ Here take ft, Dan, and the other bagful, too.” 

Dan stood looking from one to the other. Then he 


304 


BLUE HERON COVE 


glanced over at Mr. Rand and flushed and grinned shame- 
facedly. He took the four hands in one of his and 
doubled the fingers down over what they held. 

“ This what you two’ve been stewing and fussing over 
all summer? Digging and measuring and shooting off 
guns and jay-hawking all over Great Swallow Bay? Be- 
cause you thought I needed money ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What was it you said I was to do with it? Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania ? ” 

“ Yes, Dan. I heard you say two years ago if only 
you could go and take a course in engineering you could 
get a good position, somewhere besides the Smith Com- 
pany.” 

“ And so you never shall run from Blue Heron away. 
And we too shall stay here, is it not, my Daddy ? ” 

“Yes, if you want it so, dearest,” said Alan Rand. 
He had been listening closely to this conversation. 

Dan looked quite flustered. “ I guess I’ll have to leave 
here if they fire me, Highness. Aren’t kids a funny set, 
Mr. Rand? Well, I thank you both for feeling so kindly 
to me but I have a hunch this money belongs to some- 
body else and Mr. Rand has the same, I guess, though 
I’d thank him to explain the how and why of it. Open 
up the other sack, Roger.” 

“ Belongs to somebody else ! You mean Pirate 
Pinneo? But Dan ” 

“ Open up the sack first.” 

The contents of the second bag, marked $1000 T.N. 
were orderly and tame. They took out rolls of five, ten, 
and twenty dollar gold pieces, bundles of greenbacks 
and banknotes according to their denominations. 


OTHER TREASURE 


305 


“ That’s all,” said Roger. 

He turned the shot-bag over and shook it ; and out on 
the breeze fluttered a slip of paper, yellowed by time. 

“ Except this.” He caught it and brought it near his 
spectacles. 

“ Why ! ” he said, “ it’s a check.” He turned it over, 
read again, stared up at his brother as if his eyes would 
pop through his shell-rimmed goggles. 

“ I don’t understand Dan, read this.” 


50-98. No. 250 

Seamen’s Bank of Philadelphia 

Philadelphia, Pa., April 10, ’81 

Pay to the order of Thomas Newbold $35.50/100. 
Thirty- five and fifty one-hundredths Dollars. In full 
of account for fish and clams. 

William B. Jones. 

“ This settles it, I guess,” said Dan and handed it to 
Mr. Rand. 

“Yes, I think it does. But there’s another way to 
prove it. Over on Blue Heron Island is an old man who 
can shut his eyes and reel off to us from memory the 
contents of those two bags, if I’m not mistaken. I 
haven’t seen him yet; they say he’s changed, but I be- 
lieve he’ll pass that test.” 

“ You can bet he will,” said Dan. “ You’ll find him 
out back of the station-house playing checkers with some 
fellow of the crew.” 

Miss Janet would never have let them go about things 
as they did. But Miss Janet had gone to Montague 


BLUE HERON COVE 


306 

Beach, since boarders must be fed even when a beloved 
prodigal comes home. The boarders too, by the time 
the Ada docked, had gone out on the beach or in the 
village. They felt more cheerful by morning light and 
even Mr. Beagle could not quite make up his mind to 
leave, while mysteries remained unsolved. 

Cap’n Price’s house stood open. To the Cap’n him- 
self and Jake Headly of the crew, humped over their 
checker-board at the south side of the government build- 
ing, appeared an impetuous messenger. 

“ Cap’n Price, excuse me, but you better come up to 
your house quick. Mr. Rand and Dan, they want to 
ask you something awfully private and important about 
that old trouble you had with Cap’n Thomas Newbold.” 

The Cap’n wrenched his thoughts from the king move 
he had been about to make. 

“ Who’d ye say, Rawger, sent me that ’ere word?” 

“ Mr. Rand and Dan. Mr. Rand’s name is Mr. Alan 
Rand and I guess you knew him already long ago.” 

“ Cap’n Bill told you last night he had come,” put in 
Jake Headly. 

“ Yes, I know Alan Rand,” said Cap’n Price, lifting 
his head to look through his spectacles at the others. 
“ Not long ago. ’Tain’t but a short time since Alan Rand 
was down.” He seemed to wish that no one should 
dispute this and as they kept silent he folded his glasses 
and stood up — the tall, handsome, Roman-nosed old 
Cap’n. 

They were waiting in the big dining-room. Ste- 
phanie’s father rose quickly as the door opened and 
stepping forward put out his hand without a word. 
Indeed he could not at that moment speak. 


OTHER TREASURE 


307 


The old man took it and held it, scanning the face 
before him with questioning eyes. 

“ You bean’ t ” 

“ Yes, Cap’n Alan Rand.” 

Cap’n Price drew his wrist across his forehead; the 
clouded look passed over his face and he sat down in a 
chair, gazing straight ahead. Mr. Rand and Dan be- 
thought themselves then and glanced apprehensively at 
the table nearby where something lay with a napkin 
thrown over it. 

Mr. Rand spoke in a low tone. “ I don’t believe we’d 
better ask him any questions.” 

“ What’s that? Questions? You can ask me all you 
like — only wait a minute. You be Alan Rand, that little 
chap my son Steve set his eyes by ? ” Cap’n Aaron had 
not spoken of his son in many years. “ Never mind, I 
see you’re Alan grown older — like me, I s’pose — and 
Janey — and us all. I’m not what I was, Alan; you’ll 
notice a great difference here. I don’t run a store here 
any more and the post-office has been put elsewhere. I 
had a sight of trouble. I had enemies, you see, and the 
wust of that was, ’twas an old friend, a boyhood friend, 
that turned his hand against us. If ary person had told 
me ten years earlier that Tom Newbold would want to 
do me a dirty trick I’d ha’ shut the feller’s mouth for 
lyin’. Why us only about so high was friends, when his 
folks settled off the Main, and they was deer and foxes 
here. I shot a fox with father’s gun and give the skin 
to Tommy for to make a cap and he took that cap in his 
chest when we sailed on the Cape May Belle together. I 
only staid a year but Newbold stuck by the sea above 
twenty year. It changed him mightily — changed him 


BLUE HERON COVE 


308 

into as orn’ry, close-fisted cuss as ere I see. He tried to 
cheat me out of the fair price of the Lizzie M., claimin’ 
she was seam-sprung, which she was not, but a sound, 
seaworthy boat. Why wasn’t she insured when she 
went down? Why was she took out in a raging gale, 
I ask you, but for Cap’n Newbold’s fear he’d lose a penny 
somewheres? Howsomever, I felt sorry, for he was be- 
side himself — the way he talked right here in this room. 
Here was I beside the stove, there stood the meat-block 
and the cooler beyond, and I had my safe just where it 
now is. I says f Tom,’ I says, 4 1 can’t listen to such talk 
from no one. That boat was sound. I’m sorry for your 
loss — you hadn’t paid me the full price and you needn’t 
now but I won’t have such talk throwed at me,’ 
I says. So I went upstairs — my wife was sick. 
When I went in to the safe next day them bags was 
gone.” 

The Cap’n sat back. He had been leaning forward, 
talking excitedly. 

“ Where’s Janey? I guess I’m talking too much 
about this. She always wants to hesh me up.” 

“ Cap’n Aaron, tell us, what was in the two bags ? 
Do you remember ? ” 

“ Remember ? ” The Cap’n closed his eyes. “ They 
was one bag contained a thousand dollars : — ten twenty- 
dollar bills, fifteen five-dollar bills, fifty one-dollar bills, 
two rolls of twenty dollar gold pieces (ten to a roll), 
one roll tens, two rolls fives, thirty-five-fifty in small gold 
and silver, and a check on the Seamen’s Bank of Phila- 
delphia for thirty-five-fifty. 

“ That was the price of the Garland. 

“ ’Tother bag only had four hundred and seventy-five 


OTHER TREASURE 


309 


dollars in it, three hundred twenty-five short of what the 
Lizzie M. was worth at the closest figger, and I guess the 
money came out the toe of his stockin’. They was all 
kind of odd fish : — China money, Spanish and Porta-gee, 
Mexican dollars and ’Frisco money he picked up goin’ 
round the Horn, a lot of little small gold pieces and some 
of those there silver trade dollars they used to circ’late 
on the Pacific in the seventies. I recollect a queer lookin’ 
gold coin with eight sides to it.” 

They had all listened to this enumeration with bated 
breath and Roger made a motion to what lay on the 
table. But Dan shook his head at him. 

“ Cap’n Aaron,” went on Mr. Rand. “ Why were you 
certain that Newbold took the money? ” 

“ I didn’t want to think so, boy. But look here — I 
never locked only the inside of that safe and I used to 
hang the key in behind the safe. Two-three days be- 
fore, when he brought the money over here, he went in 
there with me and saw me stow the bags away and saw 
where I hung the key. We never had much call to lock 
things, them days. The only feller round these parts 
with a name for thieving was this ere Pinneo that bached 
it by himself in a shanty on Boremus Beach — Pirate 
Pinneo some folks call him. They was quite a stir about 
him some while ago that he tolled boats ashore with a 
lantern and a mule, but I alliz laughed at that. No, 
there warn’t a human being know’d where the key was at 
but Cap’n Newbold.” 

“ This Pinneo— you say you laughed at him ? ” 

“ Phin Pinneo ? Yes, I alliz laughed at him. He was 
a little whiffet; part for’ner, I reckon, and he’d walk in 
here with a kind of a biggoty swagger and when he 


3io 


BLUE HERON COVE 


thought they warn’t ary person watchin’ he’d thieve a 
han’ful o’ coffee beans or maybe some nails. I let him 
have ’em. I says to him oftentimes, I says, ‘ Help your- 
self to fish-hooks, Phin, I guess you hain’t got spine 
enough to take sinkers,’ says I.” 

Mr. Rand laughed and held up his hand, “ Take care, 
Cap’n. It’s cost you fourteen hundred and seventy-five 
dollars, with interest, already, saying that.” 

“ What say? ” 

“ Never mind. I merely want to ask, did Pinneo move 
away from Boremus Beach? ” 

“ Yes, over across onto the Main som’ers. He moved 
a passel o’ goods in his garvey by nights, they say. 
Alan, I want to tell you all the trouble and bad blood that 
followed on that act of Thomas Newbold’s.” 

“ Cap’n Aaron, I hope you’ll tell me sometime, but 
to-day there’s a matter I want to lay before you. I 
believe Pinneo was capable of doing considerable more 
damage than you gave him credit for. I think that some 
way or other he must have seen your bags of money 
stowed away and found the key. I do, for — wait. Dan, 
that paper, please. Read it through, Cap’n Aaron. Take 
your time to it.” 

It seemed long that they watched him reading, getting 
its meaning with the slow grasp of the old. And then 
when he looked up at last Roger stood in front of him 
holding out two canvas sacks. 

“ Hey, what? ” said Cap’n Price. 

His hands shook. He took the bags slowly, looked 
around helplessly at the circle of young faces. 

“ Alan, you don’t — don’t mean to say Tom Newbold 
never stole it from me ? ” 



The little girl came shyly to his side 






































I ' 






















* 






































































OTHER TREASURE 


3i 1 

“ Yes, Cap’n Aaron, we know now it was this other 
man.” 

And then they felt terribly distressed — to see the white- 
haired old Cap’n cry. 

Mr. Alan went over and sat down by him and said in 
a husky voice : “ Don’t feel so, Cap’n. We all make 
such big mistakes. I’ve just found out the terrible 
blunder of my life which I must tell you about some- 
time, and I did another wrong too. I let things come 
in and cut me off from you folks at Blue Heron and from 
my dear old Steve — your boy.” 

Cap’n Price said brokenly, “ Steve might be here now 

— if I hadn’t wronged Tom Newbold Tom grew to 

hate us all — he wouldn’t lift his hand when Steve’s boat 
rammed the dock ” 

“ Listen, Cap’n. I believe old Steve must know about 
this, to-day, and he wouldn’t want to see you break down. 
And Miss Janet, think of her. Why, she’ll do frightful 
things to us for troubling you. That’s right. Cap’n, I 
do hope Steve knows about this, for I want him 
to know one thing especially. Come over here, 
Stephanie.” 

The little girl came shyly to his side. 

“ Cap’n, long ago when Steve and I were pals and 
built a little shack for camping, over on the Point — in 
fact, I believe there’s part of it left near where this 
money was found — we made a vow to each other, and 
we sealed it with a lot of boyish ceremonies and solemn 
rites, meaning every word too. The vow was this : — We 
promised to name, each of us, our first-born child after 
the other. Steve, I understand, was unmarried. I don’t 
doubt he would have kept his word. But anyhow, I did. 


312 BLUE HERON COVE 

And here she is — my little Stephanie, Stephen Price’s 
namesake.” 

The Cap’n put on his glasses again. His tears had left 
him trembling, but somehow his mind seemed clearer 
than it had been in many years. 

He raised his head and looked long at Stephanie. And 
she was so surprised by what her father had just told her 
that she forgot to be frightened at the old man. 

“ Come here, my dear.” He took her hand and patted 
it as he had done once before, and he smoothed back her 
dark hair. 

“ Stephanie. Is that the girl’s name for Stephen ? 
Alan, I’m very proud of this. She’s a fine child, a sweet, 
pretty girl.” He was silent a moment, then his eyes 
began to twinkle. “ We had a girl round here all sum- 
mer looked like this one. But I never could get the 
hang of what they called her — Winder-catch, it sounded 
like, as much as anything.” 

A loud sob startled every one in the room. There 
stood Miss Janet in a dark corner by the pantry door. 
How long she had been there with hat and jacket on and 
a fish basket on her arm nobody knew, but the sob was 
evidently an outburst of feelings she had been keeping 
pent up during the scene just past. 

She set down the basket and waved at them all with 
her hands. 

" Don’t — don’t trouble about me. I’m only crying for 
joy — especially to think that name is done with forever.” 


CHAPTER XXIX 


MRS. PIFFINGTON RECEIVES A SHOCK 

The yacht Harpoon ran into foul weather off the 
northern banks, was driven out of her course and lay 
for many weeks on the barren coast of Labrador, dis- 
abled. The clubmen and sporting scientists who had 
gone out for a summer cruise found themselves facing 
ice bondage from the early, instantaneous winter of the 
north. It was August before a little steamer which in- 
frequently patrols that coast brought help and set them 
free. 

Mr. Rand’s man-servant, Boals, who had been an 
elevator boy twenty-five years ago when Alan Rand 
worked in a Philadelphia office and first went to Blue 
Heron — this faithful, devoted Mr. Boals was on the 
point of himself fitting out a private arctic expedition to 
rescue his employer. However, he only went as far as 
Brooklyn. He had received a telegram from Boston that 
all was well and the Harpoon would arrive at a certain 
pier on Monday morning. 

Only the August heat kept Boals from meeting Mr. 
Rand with rolls of blankets, condensed food, and other 
stores which he had gotten together with the idea of 
going north. He had in imagination so long been pic- 
turing arctic regions that he could not rid his mind of that 
thought and did actually carry on his arm to the Brook- 
lyn pier this morning Mr. Rand’s fur-lined overcoat. 

313 


314 


BLUE HERON COVE 


One of the first things he said to Mr. Rand was: 

“ Have you sent word to Miss Janet Price, sir? ” 

“ No. Has she been worried? ” 

“ Mr. Goodrich telephoned she had written to him very 
anxious, and there’s letters to you from Blue Heron 
waiting in your rooms.” 

Mr. Rand was in a great hurry to get those letters. 
Up on the wild north coast he had had plenty of time 
to think, and he had thought how, if they could not 
escape from the rocky bay they lay in, and winter starved 
them all he would die a stranger to his daughter. He 
thought of that day he parted from her and how she 
thought they were going to Coney Island and had touched 
his hair with her hand. 

The wild life there reminded him too of Stephen Price, 
his pal, the fine big lad he had camped with, spring and 
summer, on Swallow Bay. In spite of opposition he 
had kept the boyish vow of naming his first-born for 
him, and now Steve’s namesake lived under his roof- 
tree but Steve was gone. 

He supposed Miss Janet had followed all instructions. 
He fancied he had helped them by his generous gifts of 
money. And yet every thought of Blue Heron made him 
as restless to go there again, as he had been careless and 
indifferent before. 

On the desk in his room lay a great pile of mail. But 
Mr. Boals had sorted it and placed on the very top Miss 
Janet’s cards and the letters in her writing. Mr. Rand 
took all the letters to an open, awninged window of his 
sitting-room. Just as he was ready to open the first 
letter his man-servant came to his side and held out 
something else. 


MRS. PIFFINGTON RECEIVES A SHOCK 315 

“ I found this, sir, in the pocket of your coat when I 
got it out of storage. It looked so shabby and queer I 
glanced into it to see if it was yours. I would look it 
over careful, Mr. Rand, if I was you.” 

There was something in the tone of Mr. Boals that 
made his employer glance at him, and he took curiously in 
his hand the small black pocket notebook with dog-eared, 
imitation-leather covers. 

A sea breeze which had persisted valiantly past Staten 
Island and the Battery, and all the way up to Murray 
Hill, softly flapped the awning and quivered the geran- 
iums and white alyssum in a flower box outside the 
window. Wheels and steam and gasoline and bells and 
horns clanged vigorously down below and dust whirled 
aloft. Still Mr. Rand read on and when he had finished! 
reading sat intently still, staring into space. 

Then suddenly he was all impatience. 

“ Boals ! Throw some things into a bag, call a tax^ 
look up trains on the Pennsylvania. I’m starting for 
Blue Heron on the first train I can get. Hurry ! I may 
be able to catch the afternoon express from Phila- 
delphia.” 

Mr. Boals seemed to his employer provokingly slow in 
answering. He closed the window, laid out a Sunday 
paper, seemed to fiddle round the room. 

“ Why don’t you get things ready and look up those 
trains? ” 

“ Because I have already, Mr. Rand. A taxi’s wait- 
ing. Your bag’s all ready and here’s folders for you. I 
took the liberty of thinking you would want to start at 
once.” Then a trifle awkwardly, for even a privileged 
man may go too far, he stammered, “ I think you’ll be 


BLUE HERON COVE 


316 

glad. Miss Stephanie’s a lovely little girl, sir. I’ve 
kept an eye on her these many years and only the other 
day was hearing again from — er — Miss Leona Adkins, 
who was employed, you’ll remember maybe, at the Juil- 
liard, how Miss Stephanie was a sweet affectionate little 
girl but very much neglected.” 

Mr. Rand was telling all this to Miss Janet Price 
shortly after Cap’n Price heard about the money, and he 
ended, laughing: 

“ The rest of my mail lies there on my desk yet. I 
never looked at it.” 

Cap’n Price had taken the treasure and gone to his own 
room “ to write a letter.” They guessed the letter was 
to Tom Newbold’s wife and family, for he was feverish 
to atone for the old wrong. Dan had gone to Montague 
Beach. Roger had been told he might spread the story 
in the village and he softened towards his late partner 
sufficiently to urge her to go along, for the first telling 
of exciting news in which one’s self figures prominently 
is a pleasure not to be despised. 

Mr. Rand went on, “ I did take time, however, to get 
in touch with the people who have kept informed about 
Stephanie’s aunt and her son, Gustav. The Countess is 
back in Germany and I suppose her heart and soul are 
with that accursed nation in this war. There’s no doubt 
Gustav, at least, is a thorough scoundrel. I know now 
he meant to get entire control of the child’s fortune, be- 
side spiriting her away to make a German subject of her. 
Well — we’re rid of them.” 

Miss Janet’s tears, once started, seemed to gush afresh 
at every piece of news. 


MRS. PIFFINGTON RECEIVES A SHOCK 317 

“ Mr. Alan, when I stood in this dining-room just now 
and so many things came over me, I kept myself in hand 
until I suddenly realized we need not call the dear child 
any longer by that shocking name. What do you think ! 
You will hardly believe it but I found out yesterday the 
boarders were saying the dear lamb must be a German 
spy.” 

“ Who said that? ” 

“ Mrs. Piffington, from Paterson. I — I — don’t wan’t 
to express opinions about any guest under my roof but 
I really would like to call that woman something.” 

“ Call her anything you like, Miss Janet. She cer- 
tainly deserves it if she said such things about my little 
Stephanie after all the trouble we had to get her out of 
the clutches of the Germans. But we’d better say it be- 
hind her back for we have a ticklish situation here: — A 
houseful of boarders and a village full of neighbors to be 
told the whys and the wherefores of Stephanie Rand 
living in their midst as Sadie — what in time is it? — 
Wienerwurst. Now, how can it be managed?” 

Miss Janet shook her head dubiously. “ I’m sure I 
don’t know, Mr. Alan, except to tell the truth.” 

After a moment’s thought he answered : “ I believe 
you’re right. It is the only way every time. My great 
fear is a lot of publicity and notoriety for the child. But 
I don’t believe Blue Heron folks would bring that about 
and probably the only city people who have seen much of 
her are your boarders here. What’s the name of the lady 
you mentioned ? ” 

“ Mrs. Piffington — from Paterson.” 

“Is Mrs. Piffington from Paterson young or old? 
Never mind, she’s a woman. Leave her to me, Miss 


BLUE HERON COVE 


318 

Janet. To-day I’ll stay here at your house for dinner, 
so just seat me next her. Tell me about the others too.” 

After Miss Janet had described the rest of her house- 
hold they spoke of other things : — Of the trouble with 
the Land Company, and of Miss Janet’s anxiety over 
himself, and Mr. Rand took her to task for sending back 
the check, and then they came round again to Stephanie. 

“ If I had received your letters in time it might have 
done me good, but after all it was her journal that made 
me see what a blind fool I had been.” He took from his 
vest pocket a flat, black pocket notebook with imitation- 
leather covers, and seemed about to show it to Miss Janet, 
then with a self-conscious laugh thrust it back again. 
“ No, I couldn’t let even you see this. It’s my buried 
treasure that I’ve found.” 

The little old maid looked wistfully out of the door and 
across the sparkling bay. 

“ I knew the child loved you, Mr. Alan. She’s a 
darling child. I’ve come to set great store by her. But 
it’s always so with children that one loves; they come into 
one’s life and go out again because they are some one 
else’s possessions after all. But I do think it’s been good 
for her here.” 

“ Miss Janet, listen. Stephanie hasn’t come into your 
life to go out again. She’s to be near you or with you 
every summer that’s coming — we’ve decided that to- 
gether. Good for her here? I’ve been thinking of the 
true things in your letter and of my foolish plans to 
surround her down here at kind, simple old Blue Heron 
village with maids and governesses. She wasn’t a real 
child in New York. She was a little air-plant — with 
nothing but poisoned air to live on at that. What have 


MRS. PIFFINGTON RECEIVES A SHOCK 319 

you and Blue Heron and Dan and Roger made of her? 
A real first-class little girl, full of life and grit and health 
and play and whole-souled affection — a true little Ameri- 
can — my daughter.’’ 

Mrs. Piffington met the other boarders in the village 
and told them each that she knew all about the new 
arrival. He was a Mr. Alan Rand of New York, a 
prominent banker. He had stayed at Cap’n Price’s 
years ago. He was here to stay some time. How had 
she learned all this? Why, she had merely made a few 
inquiries at the hotel and the store. One thing was cer- 
tain. Mr. Rand was a business man and therefore the 
one to consult about “ this alarming and mysterious sit- 
uation.” 

Everybody agreed to this but Mr. Beagle, who acted 
very nervous. 

“ Rand, you say? Name of Rand. Alan Rand, New 
York ? Don’t like the name. Don’t want to hear about 
him ? I’m going away. Atlantic City’s good enough for 
me.” Pie was sure Alan Rand was the name he had seen 
in that alarming letter, which he had read too hurriedly 
to get the hang of it but it looked queer, looked as if 
Price’s were mixed up in something, and if this were the 
same man, why, worse and worse ! 

When the dinner-bell summoned Cap’n Price’s house- 
hold to their midday meal that day, there was Mr. Rand 
of New York standing behind the chair that was usually 
unoccupied, between Mrs. Piffington and Mr. Beagle. 
Miss Janet introduced him to every one. The Cap’n 
did not come to table and Roger and Stephanie were 
nowhere to be seen. 


320 


BLUE HERON COVE 


Mr. Rand seated Mrs. Piffington with nice courtesy 
and seemed to know instinctively that she preferred bread 
to crackers with her soup. Almost at once they began 
to talk of European travel. Mrs. Piffington beamed upon 
the newcomer. 

Mr. Beagle had seated himself with sidelong looks of 
deep suspicion, but somehow before the meal was over 
he too was won. It turned out that Mr. Rand remem- 
bered his career in the New Jersey legislature. Mr. 
Beagle said aside to Miss Janet that this Mr. Rand 
seemed well-informed and up-to-date. 

Mrs. Bradshaw with her brood and the lady from 
Philadelphia, at their separate tables, looked and listened 
and were also favorably impressed, as ladies are prone to 
be by a fine-looking man who seems properly gratified at 
meeting them. 

Mr. Rand said he had come to Blue Heron for a spe- 
cial reason. He also hinted at important developments 
since he arrived. At this Mr. Beagle edged away a 
little, while Mrs. Piffington raised her eyebrows with 
meaning glances at the other ladies, which 
plainly said, “ Is it possible he knows something 
already ? ” 

As they rose from the meal Mr. Rand said: “ If I may 
be allowed the pleasure of joining you on the upper 
veranda presently I would like to take you all into my 
confidence.” 

You may well believe the rocking-chairs on the gallery 
were filled immediately. 

“ I think he knows everything and has come to Blue 
Heron to rescue this household from a plot,” whispered 
Mrs. Piffington to the others. 


MRS. PIFFINGTON RECEIVES A SHOCK 321 

“ He is certainly very agreeable. He spoke so kindly 
to the children,” said Mrs. Bradshaw. 

“ He is undoubtedly related to the Rands of German- 
town, ’’ said the lady from Philadelphia. 

Mr. Beagle said nothing but '* Ahem!” for there at 
the door stood the subject of their words — arm in arm 
with the spy! 

Roger came just behind them and when he saw Mrs. 
Piffington’s expression he felt recompensed for every- 
thing. 

“ I want to explain something to you ladies and to you 
too, sir,” said Mr. Rand. “ I’m taking you into my con- 
fidence because I know that when a woman is rightly 
appealed to she will stop at nothing in the way of help 
and sympathy. And you, Mr. Beagle, are a member of 
the Bar and I want to enlist your sense of justice here. 

“ This little girl you have known all summer as Sadie 
— now what is that name? Wienerwurst — is my daugh- 
ter, Stephanie Rand. I hardly deserve to claim her as 
mine for we haven’t known each other very well. Until 
last March she lived in New York with her aunt, the 
Countess von Menzell. That lady has now gone abroad 
to join her son who is under orders from the German 
government. She had planned to take this little girl 
with her but I managed to spirit her away and send her 
down here to my dear and trusted old friends, Cap’n 
Price and Miss Janet. To insure her safety here I 
thought it best for her to go by some name other than 
her own and it was Stephanie herself who chose to be 
called after — who was it, dear ? ” 

“ A girl who sat by me in Central Park,” said Ste- 
phanie, never taking her eyes from her father’s face. 


322 


BLUE HERON COVE 


“ The one that didn’t go to Coney Island with us?” 
He laughed and secretly pressed her hand. 

“ Yes, my Daddy.” 

“ Now, ladies and Mr. Beagle, it has been a great cross 
to Miss Janet Price to call her by this outlandish name 
but she had been introduced that way before there was 
any chance to make a better arrangement. Miss Janet 
has worried, Stephanie herself has felt exceedingly shy, 
and everything has appeared in a queer light. I want 
you to forget all this. She is my only child and be- 
sides — I might say in spite of that — is an extra fine 
little girl. She and Roger Smith here have just made a 
wonderful discovery which will straighten out, I hope, 
an old feud, and make several people happy.” 

And then Mr. Rand told them all about the buried 
treasure. 

And finally he even told the reason of Stephanie’s real 
name, and all the ladies shed tears when he turned to the 
child and said : “ I wish he could have seen you. He’d 
have been mighty proud.” When they saw his real feel- 
ing they were completely won over, for they were not ill- 
natured. They merely inclined to tattle and spread 
stories, but that is, after all, a grave fault and very 
common in boarding-houses. 

Mrs. Piffington must have been really touched to come 
round as she did. For what a dreadful blow to find that 
while she had been, so to speak, barking up the wrong 
tree, a real German Countess had escaped, a child been 
kidnapped, and buried treasure been digged up on Great 
Swallow Bay ! 


CHAPTER XXX 


CONEY OR BLUE HERON? 

Stephanie did not get into the papers but Pirate 
Pinneo did — not, however, so you’d recognize him easily. 

A Philadelphia sheet printed this item one day: 

“ It is reported from South Herring, a suburb of 
Montague Beach, N. J., that pirate treasure has been dis- 
covered along the shore. Two fishermen, Smith and 
Rosenberg, who had run aground on one of the famous 
Indian shell beds, are said to have dug up a buried hoard 
consisting of gold nuggets, jewels, and gold and silver 
plate, in fact the type of loot despoiled from Spanish 
galleons and East Indian traders in the late eighteenth 
century by freebooters under Kidd, Quelch, and Black- 
beard. Local tradition attributes it to the work of one 
Pinero, a gaunt, myserious ruffian, who is remembered 
by the oldest inhabitant to have terrorized the then 
sparsely settled and dangerous coast. If this report 
proves true there will undoubtedly be a popular migration 
to the oyster beds along our eastern shore by persons to 
whom the get-rich-quick idea appeals.” 

Roger and Stephanie read this item with inexpressible 
scorn, and Roger said if that was the nearest those news- 
papers could strike it he guessed it wasn’t any wonder 
that European war news was all mixed up. 

323 


BLUE HERON COVE 


324 

They were both feeling very important about this time 
because so many people all up and down the beach wanted 
to hear the story and ask questions and take their pic- 
tures. Persons would get off the train asking for “ the 
boy and girl that dug up the money ” and they could 
neither stroll on the beach nor sail on the bay without 
noticing that they were being pointed out. 

“ You see we really discovered something important 
every time this year. First it was that monument; then 
the gang’s plot against Dan, which was kind of a warn- 
ing to him even if he didn’t pay much attention ; and last 
Cap’n’s money bags. Pretty clever work for two kids 
like us, I say." 

“ I say it too,” his partner nodded vigorously. They 
were both getting decidedly chesty and talkative, when 
suddenly they heard something that made them wish they 
had not talked so much. 

“ Dan, some boys are telling that people from Mon- 
tague Beach went over to Pirate Pinneo’s house and 
broke in and brought away a lot of things. They say 
they’ve carried off the wooden lady. They haven’t any 
right there, have they? If Pirate Pinneo doesn’t come 
back those things belong to us. Anyway they belong 
to Mr. Rand, because he and Stephen Price built the 
little shack.” 

Stephanie carried the same story to her father, who 
had just come back from a two-days’ trip to Philadelphia, 
and he said they would sail across at once to see about it. 

Dan was waiting at Blue Heron for orders. His step- 
brother had written a fault-finding letter asking him to 
await further instructions, until “ I have had time to in- 
vestigate the complaints of your men.” Dan was willing 


CONEY OR BLUE HERON? 


325 


to stay as long as Mr. Rand did. He and the older man 
were greatly attracted to each other and he seemed to 
take the place left vacant by that other friend and boat- 
mate. They were all day together on the bay and talked 
of winter cruises and hunting trips, but Dan said he might 
be far away by then. 

On Crooked Point they found, indeed, signs of a party 
of intruders. The place where the treasure was buried 
had been dug all round with pitfalls; the wooden lady 
had had the aigrette whittled from her shoulder by a jack- 
knife; some of the port lights were broken. But locked 
door, nailed shutters, and the wooden cleats inside the 
battened trap-door had withstood prying hands so far. 

Roger and Stephanie were deeply displeased at the 
damage done. 

“ What right had they to come ? Nobody invited 
them.” 

“ Nobody invited Roger Smith and Stephanie Rand,” 
mildly suggested Mr. Rand. 

“ Yes, but, my Daddy, we gave care to everything 
while Pirate Pinneo might come back on us.” 

“ Pirate Pinneo won’t come back any more, I think.” 

They all exclaimed and asked questions. 

u I had inquiries started some days ago, and yesterday 
in Philadelphia found out that a queer old fellow, an- 
swering that description, had died in the hospital at 
Atlantic City only a few weeks back. He was an old 
man, you know, almost as old as Cap’n Price, and living 
alone so long had unsettled his mind entirely — he must 
have been a bit cracked always. Evidently he kept track 
of what was going on along shore for his letter shows 
that he knew when certain enterprising parties uncovered 


BLUE HERON COVE 


326 

the old landmark, which had been lost before his time. 
It gave him what you might call a hunch — and a true 
hunch it was — that the same busybodies would be digging 
him out ere many weeks. So he went away to Atlantic 
City and tried to live peddling clams but took cold and 
died. Don’t look so sad, dear; the nurse reported he 
told her he had something to be thankful for and that 
was that his conscience, which had been bad for years, 
was now water-tight and seaworthy. Evidently he felt 
sure the writing he had left behind would make every- 
thing all right.” 

They paid to Pirate Pinneo the tribute of sober silence 
for a moment His queer dwelling basked in the sun- 
shine and a song sparrow away in the meadow piped a 
little ragtime air that must have been listened to many 
times by the old vagabond himself from his doorway or 
the lookout on the roof. 

“ Then,” asked Roger wonderingly, “ who owns this 
house? ” 

“ I think I do,” said Mr. Rand, laughing rather shame- 
facedly. “ At least I’ve started negotiations to buy the 
land from parties at Cape May who own a big tract 
through here. Perhaps it would have been more sensible 
to buy on the island, instead of so much bog and meadow. 
But who wouldn’t want to buy this house? I shan’t 
disturb a board of it but intend to build on the high 
ground farther in. Dan will have to help me lay out 
roads when he’s here on his vacations.” 

Dan looked blank, “ Vacations? ” 

Mr. Rand laid his hand on his shoulder and spoke with 
boyish eagerness. “ Don’t be a spoil-sport, Dan. I went 
round to see your stepbrother, which was none of my 


CONEY OR BLUE HERON? 327 

business, you’ll say, but I took an instantaneous dislike 
to the fellow and it’s time you were rid of him. Let me 
be the means to it. I owe you a big debt already for 
what you did last spring. And here Roger and my 
daughter were just on the pont of setting you tip for 
life when I butted in and spoiled that by turning the 
boodle over to Cap’n Price. Seriously, Dan, let me ad- 
vance money for whatever you need to make you an 
expert. You’re cut out for bigger jobs than any you’ve 
had yet. Pay it back later if you wish. Come, say yes. 
Dan, we’re friends. I came here thinking to miss Steve 
Price and I find you instead. Won’t you take it from 
a friend?” 

Dan stammered, “ I had decided to go over to France 
and get in the big fight if I could.” 

“ Well, it may be our fight soon. All the more reason 
to put good expert training behind you, if you think of 
that. And we’ll fix up some plan for Roger too.” 

“ Oh, Roger’s schooling is paid for from my father’s 
property.” 

“ Good. Then you will both spend your vacations 
here, as Pve engaged your services in putting this prop- 
erty in order.” 

Stephanie’s eyes shone. “ Do, my Giant, do,” she 
begged, pulling at his hand. 

Dan looked down at her and said, “All right,” so 
shortly that a stranger must have thought he was of- 
fended. But all those present understood him and Roger 
immediately stood on his head in front of the wooden 
lady, in an abandonment of joy. 

Then they all went into the house and investigated 
everything. Only the children had really seen the inside 


328 BLUE HERON COVE 

before and as soon as Mr. Rand crossed the threshold he 
exclaimed : 

“ This is the same shack we put up ! I remember the 
boards in that wall there and I believe that stove was 
ours — the rest has been built over. We named it ‘ The 
Pirates’ Own ’ after a book that used to be at Cap’n’s. 
There were three or four funny old books about Car- 
ibbean rovers and Captain Kidd, with their deeds all pic- 
tured out, that were kept in a little cabinet in Cap’n’s 
sitting-room. You ought to find ’em, Roger.” 

Roger and Stephanie exchanged a glance. 

They opened all the cupboards, the dresser, and the 
chest. Here were stored, besides a few stale biscuit and 
store goods, ship’s lamps, ship’s tinware and crockery, 
ship’s bedding, articles of clothing from the slop-chest, 
ship’s blankets, and a medley of corks, bottles, pumice, 
rope-ends, that the surf had cast up. In the chest there 
still lay a few bottles of rare French wine. One of the 
cupboards contained a brace of old silver-mounted 
pistols. 

When they had examined also the long room with its 
curios Mr. Rand said : 

“ Do you know, I believe Pinneo had more reason for 
trouble in his ‘ conshins ’ than we have guessed. These 
little toys came out of seamen’s lockers and most things 
here were taken from vessels that hadn’t yet gone to 
pieces. Don’t you think so, Dan? He must have gone 
on board of vessels before the underwriters and lifted 
things by wholesale.” 

Dan nodded. “ I take him to have been a queer, fur- 
tive old fish — half-hermit, half-longshoreman — with a 
taste for stealing which he was rather proud of, or he 


CONEY OR BLUE HERON? 


329 


never would have taken offence with Cap’n’s jokes 
enough to get back at him as he did.” 

“ We must bring Cap’n Price here. I bet he would 
know the history of everything this house contains.” 

Cap’n Price had had a letter from Thomas Newbold’s 
son, saying that they asked no more than the Cap’n’s open 
withdrawal of the old accusation against his father. He 
wished his father were alive to forgive and forget, for 
he believed the feud had embittered all his later years. 
Then he went on to speak of the finding of the monument 
and he thought they should get together to deal with 
the Land Company. 

There was no need for Cap’n Price to make any 
further public retraction, for the story was now known 
from one end of Cranberry County to the other. He 
seemed to forget much of what had passed sadly. He 
talked continually of Tommy Newbold, the boy he had 
grown up with, and when Thomas Newbold’s son came 
he would walk and talk with him for hours, telling inci- 
dents of his youth that even Miss Janet had never heard 
before. 

Mr. Rand promised to straighten out the business af- 
fairs of the Cap’n and Miss Janet, but first it was neces- 
sary for him to go up to New York for a few weeks. 
And he didn’t propose to go to New York alone. Ste- 
phanie went with him. 

During those weeks in New York one day was espe- 
cially touched with high lights, for Roger came to the 
city to spend the day. Mr. Rand and Stephanie met him 
at the station and then they all sped northward to pick 
up another passenger. 

In the plate-glass window before which their car drew 


330 


BLUE HERON COVE 


up there were mounds of salad, strings of sausage, bowls 
of pickles; there were pressed meats, sauerkraut, dill 
pickles, codfish balls, spaghetti, and baked beans. And in 
raised letters on the glass was a name which caused 
Roger to let out a whistle. 

WIENERWURST 

DELICATESSEN 

They did not have to wait long, for things had been 
arranged by telephone by Mr. Rand. Out of a stairway 
at one side of the shop somebody came flying, somebody 
whom Stephanie instantly recognized though she wore no 
plush coat and no cap mit buttons. 

“ Hullo, kid,” said Sadie, the real Sadie. 

“ Hullo,” said Stephanie. Then they both felt bashful. 

Mr. Rand helped Sadie into the car and as she sat 
down on the rear seat with Stephanie between her and 
Roger she whispered : 

“ That your pop ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Hm ! ” said Sadie. Then the hostess remembered 
her manners and said : 

“ This is Roger Smith from Blue Heron, New Jersey.” 

“ From Philadelphia, you mean,” said Roger. 

“ Philadelphia ? That’s a dead town,” said Sadie. 
Roger disputed this and they all fell into an animated 
conversation which lasted till they found themselves at 
Coney Island. 

When Sadie found that two of the party had never 
been to that resort before she assumed an air of part- 
nership with Mr. Rand. 


CONEY OR BLUE HERON? 


33i 


“ Say, they never bumped the bumps. Don’t you think 
we’d better try it? Pop takes us sometimes,” she would 
say, digging her little elbow into the side of the tall, dis- 
tinguished gentleman. He never once refused to follow 
a suggestion of hers, and going home after their glorious 
day she whispered to Stephanie: 

“ I like your Pop. There’s no rough-neck about him.” 

There was a question Stephanie had been all day mak- 
ing up her mind to ask. 

“ Sadie, did you come to see me at the Hotel Juilliard 
that day I asked you to ? ” 

“ Sure. Skated down through the park and then 
walked round to your place. There was a man in funny 
clothes turning the glass door, but he looked kind of 
absent-minded so I just skipped in and asked a fellow 
that sat behind a counter, and he said, ‘ Miss Rawnd just 
pawssed through the lobby with her noyce,’ he said.” 

“ It was a mistake, Sadie. I should not ask you that 
day, for I must go to Blue Heron yet and it is while you 
talk so much of your pop I want you to see my — my 
beautiful daddy, but he understand not and meets me by 
a ferry and there was no Coney Island then.” 

Sadie laughed. “ Now when you talk fast you talk 
that dago way again.” 

Mr. Rand turned round and said : 

“ Sadie, you say you are all good Americans at your 
house ? ” 

“ Well, I guess. My pop has lived here twenty years 
and all of us got born here, Fritz and Emma and Walter 
and Klaus and Sophie and the baby. You think we like 
some other country now ? I should worry. America is 
good enough for us , my pop says.” 


332 


BLUE HERON COVE 


So before they parted Mr. Rand and Stephanie went 
into the shop to shake hands with Mr. Wienerwurst and 
Stephanie promised some day to go upstairs and see Fritz 
and Emma and Walter and Klaus and Sophie and the 
baby. 

“ I’d like that they should all come to Blue Heron 
sometime too,” she told her father as they rode away. 
“ For you see I borrowed from Sadie something which 
I used a long time.” 

“ Certainly, they all shall come to see us at the new 
house on Crooked Point.” 

“ Whew ! ” said Roger, “ don’t let Cap’n Price get 
wind of any more Wienerwursts.” 

They drove downtown a different way and as they 
drew near a certain corner Mr. Rand gave an order 
and suddenly Stephanie found herself before a familiar 
stately entrance. She turned pale and shrank back in the 
corner of the cushioned seat. Seeing this, her father 
said : “ You needn’t go in, dear, but if I’m not mistaken 
there’s still a friend of yours left here, and at this 
hour I may be able to bring him out to speak to 
you.” 

A moment later Gaston Jeannerot stood beside the 
car, bareheaded, overwhelmed with pleasure. 

“ Mademoiselle, it is to rejoice. Ah, but what a 
change, Monsieur ! The life, the color, the plumpness of 
mademoiselle! I can scarce believe it is the same child 
who ate always in the shadow of a German. Has Mon- 
sieur any news of Madame von Menzell ? ” 

“ Not very recent, Gaston. She is in Germany and we 
don’t want to hear much news from there.” 

“ The heart of madame was ever there. And I, Mon- 


CONEY OR BLUE HERON? 


333 

sieurs and Mademoiselle, another week and I set sail for 
my good land, to defend her soil.” 

With blessings and good wishes they left Stephanie’s 
first true friend. Then they helped Roger to collect all 
the souvenirs and odds and ends he was to take down to 
Blue Heron, after spending the night in Philadelphia, and 
they saw him off, sending messages to Cap’n, to Miss 
Janet, and to Dan, all of whom they expected soon to see. 

Mr. Alan Rand, as they drove away eastward in the 
evening light, drew his daughter’s hand in his. 

“ Were you pleased with Coney Island? ” 

“ Yes, my Daddy. It has been a glorious day and I 
like Coney much but not so much as Blue Heron, yes ? I 
find so much there which I love.” 

“ And I found one thing there which I love best,” 
he said. 


THE END 



COMPANION STORIES OF COUNTRY LIFE 
FOR BOYS By CHARLES 7>. BURTON 

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Illustrated by George A. Williams. 12mo. $1.30. 

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The “Bob's Hill” band organizes a Boy Scouts band and 
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by^alfred; bishop mason 


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__ .*4: ^ - 

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THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE FOR 
YOUNG FOLKS 


Compiled by Burton E. Stevenson, Editor of 
“The Home Book of Verse.” 

With cover, and illustrations in color and black and white by 
WILLY POGANY. Over 500 pages, large i2mo. $2.00 net. 

Not a rambling, hap-hazard collection but a vade-mecum 
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nonsense verse; then come fairy verses and Christmas 
poems ; then nature verse and favorite rhymed stories ; then 
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“Life Lessons” and “A Garland of Gold” (the great 
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This arrangement secures sequence of sentiment and a 
sort of cumulative appeal. Nearly all the children’s 
classics are included, and along with them a body of verse 
not so well known but almost equally deserving. There 
are many real “finds,” most of which have never before 
appeared in any anthology. 

Mr. Stevenson has banished doleful and pessimistic 
verse, and has dwelt on hope, courage, cheerfulness and 
helpfulness. The book should serve, too, as an introduc- 
tion to the greater poems, informing taste for them and 
appreciation of them, against the time when the boy or 
girl, grown into youth and maiden, is ready to swim out 
into the full current of English poetry. 


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STANDARD CYCLOPEDIAS FOR YOUNG OR OLD 


CHAMPLIN’S 

Young Folks’ Cyclopedias 

By JOHN D. CHAMPLIN 

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COMMON THINGS 

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PERSONS AND PLACES 

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*' We know copies of the work to which their young owners turn 
instantly for information upon every theme about which they have 
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are read daily, as well as consulted; that their owners turn the leaves 
as they might those of a fairy book, reading intently articles of which 
they had not thought before seeing them, and treating the book simply 
as one capable of furnishing the rarest entertainment in exhaustless 
quantities, N. Y. Evening Post. 

LITERATURE AND ART 

604 pp. 270 Illustrations 

“ Few poems, plays, novels, pictures, statues, or fictitious characters 
that children— or most of their parents — of our day are likely to inquire 
about will be missed here. Mr. Champlin’s judgment seems unusually 
sound.” — The Nation . 

GAMES AND SPORTS 

By John D. Champlin and Arthur Bostwick 

Revised Edition, 784 pp. 900 Illustrations 

“ Should form a part of every juvenile library, whether public or 
private.” — The Independent. 

NATURAL HISTORY 

By John D. Champlin, assisted by Frederick A. Lucas 
715 pp. Over 800 Illustrations 

“Here, in compact and attractive form, is valuable and reliable in- 
formation on every phase of natural history, on every item of interest 
to the student. Invaluable to the teacher and school, and should be on 
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taught to go to this volume for information useful and interesting. 
Journal of Education. 

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NEW YORK CHICAGO 


BOOKS OF PLAYS FOR YOUNG FOLK 

DESIGNED FOR USE IN THE SCHOOLS 
By CONSTANCE D’ARCY MACKAY 
PATRIOTIC PLAYS AND PAGEANTS 

Pageant of Patriotism (Outdoor) : - Prologue by the Spirit 
of Patriotism, ''-Princess Pocahontas, Pilgrim Interlude, Ferry Farm 
Episode, '■■George Washington’s Fortune, *Daniel Boone : Patriot, 
Benjamin Franklin Episode, Abraham Lincoln Episode, Final 
Tableau, March of Players. 

Pageant of Patriotism (Indoor) a variation of the above. 

Hawthorne Pageant (for Outdoor or Indoor Production): — 
Chorus of Spirits of the Old Manse, Prologue by the Muse of Haw- 
thorne, First Episode (In Witchcraft Days), Dance Interlude, 
Second Episode (Merrymount), Procession of Player Folk. 

The portions of the pageants marked with a star (*) are sepa- 
rate> one-act plays especially suitable for separate performance in 
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scenes, and staging. i2mo. $1.35 net. 

THE HOUSE OF THE HEART 

Short plays in verse to be acted by children of fourteen or 
younger. $1.20 net. 

Includes: — “The House of the Heart” (Morality Play) — 
“The Enchanted Garden” (Flower Play — “A Little Pilgrim’s 
Progress” (Morality Play. — “A Pageant of Hours” (To be given 
Out of Doors) — “On Christmas Eve.” “The Elf Child.” “The 
Princess and the Pixies.” “The Christmas Guest.” (Miracle 
Play.) Etc. 

“An addition to child drama which has been sorely needed.”— Boston 
Transcript, 

THE SILVER THREAD 

And Other Folk Plays. $1.20 net. 

Contents: — “The Silver Thread” (Cornish); “The Forest 
Spring” (Italian); “ The Foam Maiden ” (Celtic); “Troll Magic” 
(Norwegian); “The Three Wishes” (French); “A Brewing of 
Brains” (English); “Siegfried” (German); “The Snow Witch” 
(Russian). 


HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

Publishers Nbw York 










































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